NINON     D  E     LE  NCLOS 


NINON    DE    L'ENCLOS 

AND    HER    CENTURY 


BY 

M.    C.    ROWSELL 

AUTHOR  OF 

,"  "TRAITOI 
MANOR,"   "MONSIEUR  DE   PARIS,"  ETC.    ETC. 


WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS 


BRENTANO'S 

NEW  YORK 

HURST  &  BLACKETT,  LIMITED 

LONDON 
1910 


Oniv.  Library,  Univ.  Calif,  Santa  Cruii 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I  ..... 

Birth — Parentage — "  Arms  and  the  Man" — A  Vain  Hope — Con- 
traband Novels  —  A  Change  of  Educational  System  —  Ninon's 
Endowments — The  Wrinkle — A  Letter  to  M.  de  L'Enclos  and 
What  Came  of  it — A  Glorious  Time — "Troublesome  Huguenots" 
— The  Chateau  at  Loches,  and  a  New  Aquaintance — "  When  Greek 
meets  Greek"  —  The  Prisoners  —  "Liberty" — The  Shades  of 
Night — Vagabonds?  or  Two  Young  Gentlemen  of  Consequence ? — 
Tired  Out — A  Dilemma— Ninon  Herself  Again — Consolation. 

CHAPTER  II  .  .  .  .  .  -14 

Troublesome  Huguenots — Madame  de  L'Enclos — An  Escapade  and 
Nurse  Madeleine— Their  Majesties— The  H6tel  Bourgogne— The 
End  of  the  Adventure — St  Vincent  de  Paul  and  his  Charities — 
Dying  Paternal  Counsel  —  Ninon's  New  Home  —  Duelling  — 
Richelieu  and  the  Times. 

CHAPTER  III  .  .  .  .  .  -27 

A  Life-long  Friend — St  Evremond's  Courtly  Mot — Rabelais  v. 
Petronius— Society  and  the  Salons — The  Golden  Days — The  Man 
in  Black. 

CHAPTER  IV  ..  .  .  36 

A  "  Delicious  Person" — Voiture's  Jealousy — A  Tardy  Recognition 
— Coward  Conscience — A  Protestant  Pope — The  Hotel  de  Ram- 
bouillet — St  Evremond— The  Duel — Nurse  Madeleine — Cloistral 
Seclusion  and  Jacques  Callot — "  Merry  Companions  Every  One  " — 
and  One  in  Particular. 

CHAPTER  V  ......       51 

An  Excursion  to  Gentilly — "  Urania  Sacrum" — Cesar  and  Ruggieri 
— The  rue  d'Enfer  and  the  Capucins — Perditor — The  Love-philtre 
— Seeing  the  Devil — "Now  You  are  Mine  !  " 

CHAPTER  VI  ,  .  .  .  .61 

Nemesis  —  Ninon's  Theories — Wits  and  Beaux  of  the  Salons — 
Found  at  Last— "The  Smart  Set"  — A  Domestic  Menage— 
Scarron — The  Fatal  Carnival — The  Bond  of  Ninon — Corneille  and 
The  Cid — The  Cardinal's  Jealousy  —  Enlarging  the  Borders — 
Monsieur  1'Abbe  and  the  Capon  Leg — The  Grey  Cardinal — A 
Faithful  Servant. 


vi  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 


CHAPTER  VII         ...  .  .       81 

Melusine — Cinq-Mars — An  Ill-advised  Marriage — -The  Conspiracy 
—The  Revenge— The  Scaffold— A  Cry  from  the  Bastille— The 
Lady's  Man — "The  Cardinal's  Hangman" — Finis — Louis's  Even- 
song— A  Little  Oversight — The  King's  Nightcap — Mazarin — 
Ninon's  Hero. 

CHAPTER  VIII       .  .  .  .  .  91 

"  Loving  like  a  Madman  " — A  Great  Transformation — The  Unjust 
Tax — Parted  Lovers — A  Gay  Court  and  A  School  for  Scandal,  and 
Mazarin's  Policy — The  Regent's  Caprices — The  King's  Uphol- 
sterer's Young  Son — The  Theatre  Illustre — The  Company  of 
Monsieur  and  Moliere. 

CHAPTER  IX  ......     103 

The  Rift  in  the  Lute — In  the  Vexin — The  Miracle  of  the  Gardener's 
Cottage — Italian  Opera  in  Paris — Parted  Lovers — "Ninum" — 
Scarron  and  Franfoise  d'Aubigne —  Treachery  —  A  Journey  to 
Naples  —  Masaniello  —  Renewing  Acquaintances  —  Mazarin's 
Mandate. 

CHAPTER  X  .  .  .  .  .  .     115 

The  Fronde  and  Mazarin — A  Brittany  Manor — Borrowed  Locks — 
The  Flight  to  St  Germains— A  Gouty  Duke— Across  the  Channel 
—The  Evil  Genius— The  Scaffold  at  Whitehall— Starving  in  the 
Louvre — The  Mazarinade — Poverty — Cond6's  Indignation — The 
Cannon  of  the  Bastille — The  Young  King. 

CHAPTER  XI  .  .  .  .  .  .124 

Invalids  in  the  rue  des  Tournelles — On  the  Battlements—"  La 
Grande  Mademoiselle"— Casting  Lots — The  Sacrifice — The  Bag 
of  Gold — "  Get  Thee  to  a  Convent" — The  Battle  of  the  Sonnets — 
A  Curl-paper — The  Triumph  and  Defeat  of  Bacchus — A  Secret 
Door — Cross  Questions  and  Crooked  Answers — The  Youthful 
Autocrat. 

CHAPTER  XII          .  .  .  .  .  .     135 

The  Whirligig  of  Time,  and  an  Old  Friend — Going  to  the  Fair — 
A  Terrible  Experience — The  Young  Abbe — "The  Brigands  of  La 
Trappe  " — The  New  Ordering — An  Enduring  Memory — The  King 
over  the  Water— Unfulfilled  Aspirations—"  Not  Good-looking." 

CHAPTER  XIII        .  .  .  .  .  .144 

Christina's  Modes  and  Robes — Encumbering  Favour — A  Comedy 
at  the  Petit- Bourbon — The  Liberty  of  the  Queen  and  the  Liberty 
of  the  Subject — Tears  and  Absolutions — The  Tragedy  in  the 
Galerie  des  Cerfs — Disillusions. 

CHAPTER  XIV        .  .  .  .  .  .154 

Les  Prtcieuses  Ridicules — Sappho  and  Le  Grand  Cyrus — The 
Poets  of  the  Latin  Quarter— The  Satire  which  Kills— A  Lost  Child 
— Periwigs  and  New  Modes — The  Royal  Marriage  and  a  Grand 
Entry. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  vii 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XV          ......     163 

Reunions  —  The  Scarrons— The  Fete  at  Vaux— The  Little  Old 
Man  in  the  Dressing-gown — Louise  de  la  Valliere — How  the  Mice 
Play  when  the  Cat's  Away — "  Pauvre  Scarron  " — An  Atrocious 
Crime. 

CHAPTER  XVI        .  .  .  .  .  .     175 

A  Lettre  de  Cachet — Mazarin's  Dying  Counsel — Madame  Scarron 
Continues  to  Receive — Fouquet's  Intentions  and  What  Came  of 
Them— The  Squirrel  and  the  Snake — The  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask — 
An  Incommoding  Admirer — "  Calice  cher,  ou  le  parfum  n'est 
plus  " — The  Roses'  Sepulchre. 

CHAPTER  XVII       .  .  .  .  .  .185 

A  Fashionable  Water-cure  Resort — M.  de  Roquelaure  and  his 
Friends — Louis  le  Grand — "A  Favourite  with  the  Ladies" — The 
Broken  Sword — A  Billet-doux — La  Valliere  and  la  Montespan — 
The  Rebukes  from  the  Pulpit— Putting  to  the  Test— Le  Tartufe— 
The  Triumphs  of  Moliere — The  Story  of  Clotilde. 

CHAPTER  XVIII     ......     199 

A  Disastrous  Wooing — Fenelon — "Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos" — 
The  Pride  that  had  a  Fall— The  Death  of  the  Duchesse  d'Orleuns— 
Intrigue — The  Sun-King  and  the  Shadows — The  Clermont  Scholar's 
Crime — Monsieur  de  Montespan — Tardy  Indignation — The  En- 
counter— The  Filles  Repenties — What  the  Cards  Foretold. 

CHAPTER  XIX        .  .  .  .  .  .212 

"In  Durance  Vile" — Moliere's  Mot — The  Malade  Imaginaire — 
"Rogues  and  Vagabonds"  —  The  Passing  of  Moliere  —  The 
Narrowing  Circle  —  Fontenelle  —  Lulli  —  Racine  —  The  Little 
Marquis — A  Tardy  Pardon — The  Charming  Widow  Scarron — 
A  Journey  to  the  Vosges,  and  the  Haunted  Chamber. 

CHAPTER  XX          ......     228 

The  Crime  of  Madame  Tiquet — A  Charming  Little  Hand — Aqua 
Toffana — The  Casket — A  Devout  Criminal — The  Sinner  and  the 
Saint — Monsieur  de  Lauzun's  Boots — "Sister  Louise" — La  Fon- 
tange — "Madame  de  Maintenant" — The  Blanks  in  the  Circle — 
The  Vatican  Fishes  and  their  Good  Example — Piety  at  Versailles 
— The  Periwigs  and  the  Paniers—  Pere  la  Chaise — A  Dull  Court — 
Monsieur  de  St  Evremond's  Decision. 

CHAPTER  XXI         .  .  .  .  .  .241 

A  Distinguished  Salon — The  Duke's  Homage — Quietism — The 
Disastrous  Edict — The  Writing  on  the  Window-pane — The  Per- 
secution of  the  Huguenots — The  Pamphleteers — The  Story  of  Jean 
Larcher  and  The  Ghost  of  M.  Scarron — The  Two  Policies. 


viii  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XXII       .  .  .  .  -251 

Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos'  Cercle — Madeleine  de  Scuderi — The 
Abbe  Dubois— "  The  French  Calliope,"  and  the  Romance  of  her 
Life — " Revenons  b  nos  Moutons" — A  Resurrection? — Racine  and 
his  Detractors — "Esther" — Athalie  and  St  Cyr — Madame  Guyon 
and  the  Quietists. 

CHAPTER  XXIII     .  .  .  .  .  .263 

A  Grave  Question  —  The  Troublesome  Brother-in-Law — "No 
Vocation" — The  Duke's  Choice— Peace  for  "La  Grande  Made- 
moiseile" — An  Invitation  to  Versailles — Behind  the  Arras — Between 
the  Alternatives — D'Aubigne's  Shadow — A  Broken  Friendship. 

CHAPTER  XXIV     .  .  .  .  .  .275 

The  Falling  of  the  Leaves— Gallican  Rights— "The  Eagle  of 
Meaux  " — Conde's  Funeral  Oration — The  Abbe  Gedouin's  Theory 
— A  Bag  of  Bones — Marriage  and  Sugar-plums — The  Valour  of 
Monsieur  du  Maine — The  King's  Repentance — The  next  Campaign 
— La  Fontaine  and  Madame  de  Sabliere — MM.  de  Port  Royal — 
The  Fate  of  Madame  Guyon — "  Mademoiselle  Balbien." 

CHAPTER  XXV       .  .  .  .  .  .288 

The  Melancholy  King — The  Portents  of  the  Storm — The  Ambition 
of  Madame  Louise  Quatorze — The  Farrier  of  Provence — The  Ghost 
in  the  Wood — Ninon's  Objection — The  King's  Conscience — A 
Dreary  Court — Racine's  Slip  of  the  Tongue — The  Passing  of  a 
Great  Poet,  and  a  Busy  Pen  Laid  Down. 

CHAPTER  XXVI      .  .  .  .  .  .301 

Leaving  the  Old  Home— "  Wrinkles  "—Young  Years  and  Old 
Friends— "A  Bad  Cook  and  a  Little  Bit  of  Hot  Coal"— Voltaire 
— Irtne — Making  a  Library — "Adieu,  Mes  Amis" — The  Man  in 
Black. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 
CARDINAL  RICHELIEU 
DE  LA  ROCHEFOUCAULD 

MOLIERE 

ST  EVREMOND 
NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 


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To  face  page     24 

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NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

AND    HER    CENTURY 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

AND    HER    CENTURY 


CHAPTER  I 

Birth — Parentage — "  Arms  and  the  Man  " — A  Vain  Hope — Con- 
traband Novels — A  Change  of  Educational  System — Ninon's 
Endowments — The  Wrinkle — A  Letter  to  M.  de  L'Enclos 
and  What  Came  of  it — A  Glorious  Time — "Troublesome 
Huguenots  " — The  Chateau  at  Loches,  and  a  New  Acquaint- 
ance— "When  Greek  meets  Greek"  —  The  Prisoners  — 
"  Liberty  " — The  Shades  of  Night — Vagabonds  ?  or  Two 
Young  Gentlemen  of  Consequence? — Tired  Out — A 
Dilemma — Ninon  Herself  Again — Consolation. 

ANNE  DE  L'ENCLOS  was  born  in  Paris  in  1615.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  Monsieur  de  L'Enclos,  a  gentle- 
man of  Touraine,  and  of  his  wife,  a  member  of  the 
family  of  the  Abra  de  Raconis  of  the  OrWanois. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  characteristics  more 
diverse  than  those  distinguishing  this  pair.  Their 
union  was  an  alliance  arranged  for  them — a  mariage 
de  convenance.  Diametrically  opposite  in  tempera- 
ment, Monsieur  was  handsome  and  distinguished- 
looking  ;  while  the  face  and  figure  of  Madame  were 
ordinary.  She  was  constitutionally  timid,  and 
intellectually  narrow,  devoted  to  asceticism,  and 
reserved  in  manner.  She  passed  her  time  in 
seclusion,  dividing  it  between  charitable  works,  the 
reading  of  pious  books,  and  attendance  at  Mass 
and  the  other  services  of  the  Church.  Monsieur 
de  L'Enclos,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  votary  of 


2  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

every  pleasure  and  delightful  distraction  the  world 
could  afford  him.  Among  them  he  counted  duel- 
ling ;  he  was  a  skilled  swordsman,  and  his  rapier 
play  was  of  the  finest.  A  brave  and  gallant 
soldier,  he  had  served  the  royal  cause  during  the 
later  years  of  Henri  IV.,  and  so  on  into  the  reign 
of  Louis  XIII.  He  was  a  don  vivant^  and  arms 
and  intrigue,  which  were  as  the  breath  of  life  to 
him,  he  sought  after  wherever  the  choicest  oppor- 
tunities of  those  were  likely  to  be  found. 

Notwithstanding,  the  rule  of  lifelong  bickering 
and  mutual  reproach  attending  such  ill-assorted 
unions,  would  seem  to  be  proved  by  its  exception 
in  the  case  of  Ninon's  parents ;  since  no  record  of 
any  such  domestic  strife  stands  against  them. 
Bearing  and  forbearing,  they  agreed  to  differ,  and 
went  their  several  ways  —  Madame  de  L'Enclos 
undertaking  the  training  and  instruction  of  Ninon  in 
those  earliest  years,  in  the  fond  hope  that  there 
would  be  a  day  when  she  should  take  the  veil  and 
become  a  nun.  Before,  however,  she  attained  to  the 
years  of  as  much  discretion  as  she  ever  possessed, 
she  had  arrived  at  the  standpoint  of  the  way  she 
intended  to  take  of  the  life  before  her,  which  was  to 
roll  into  years  that  did  not  end  until  the  dawning  of 
the  eighteenth  century ;  and  it  in  no  way  included  any 
such  intention.  So  sturdily  opposed  to  it,  indeed,  was 
she,  that  it  irresistibly  suggests  the  possibility  of 
her  being  the  inspiration  of  the  old  song — "  Ninon 
wouldn't  be  a  nun  " — 

"  I  shan't  be  a  nun,  I  won't  be  a  nun, 
I  am  so  fond  of  pleasure  that  I  won't  be  a  nun  ! " 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  3 

For  Ninon  was  her  father's  child  ;  almost  all  her 
inherited  instincts  were  from  him.  The  endeavours 
of  Madame  de  L'Enclos  failed  disastrously.  The 
monotony  and  rigid  routine  of  the  young  girl's  life 
repelled  the  bright,  frank  spirit,  and  drove  it  to 
opposite  extreme,  resulting  in  sentiments  of  dis- 
gust for  the  pious  observances  of  her  church  ;  and 
taken  there  under  compulsion  day  in,  day  out,  she 
usually  contrived  to  substitute  some  plump  little 
volume  of  romance,  or  other  light  literature,  at  the 
function,  for  her  Mass-book  and  breviary,  to  while 
away  the  tedium. 

In  no  very  long  time  Monsieur  de  L'Enclos, 
noting  the  bent  of  his  daughter's  nature,  himself 
took  over  her  training.  He  carried  it  on,  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  say,  upon  a  plane  widely  apart 
from  the  mother's.  A  man  of  refined  intellect, 
he  had  studied  the  books  and  philosophy  of  the 
renaissance  of  literature ;  and  before  Ninon  was 
eleven  years  old,  while  imbuing  her  with  the  love 
of  reading  such  books  as  the  essays  of  Montaigne 
and  the  works  of  Charon,  he  accustomed  her  to 
think  and  to  reason  for  herself,  an  art  of  which  she 
very  soon  became  a  past-mistress,  the  result  being 
an  ardent  recognition  of  the  law  of  liberty,  and  the 
Franciscan  counsel  of  perfection:  "Fay  ce  quet 
voudray"  Ninon  possessed  an  excellent  gift  of 
tongues,  cultivating  it  to  the  extent  of  acquiring 
fluently,  Italian,  Spanish,  and  English,  rendered  the 
more  easy  of  mastery  from  her  knowledge  of  Latin, 
which  she  so  frequently  quotes  in  her  correspondence. 

Her  love  of  music  was  great;   she   sang  well, 


4  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

and  was  a  proficient  on  the  lute,  in  which  her  father 
himself,  a  fine  player,  instructed  her.  She  con- 
versed with  facility,  and  doubtless  took  care  to 
cultivate  her  natural  gifts  in  those  days  when  the 
arts  of  conversation  and  causerie  were  indispensable 
for  shining  in  society,  and  she  loved  to  tell  a  good 
story  ;  but  she  drew  a  distinct  line  at  reciting.  One 
day  when  Mignard,  the  painter,  deplored  his  hand- 
some daughter's  defective  memory,  she  consoled 
him — "  How  fortunate  you  are,"  she  said,  "  she 


cannot  recite." 


The  popular  acceptation  of  Ninon  de  L'Enclos' 
claims  to  celebrity  would  appear  to  be  her  beauty, 
which  she  retained  to  almost  the  end  of  her  long 
life — a  beauty  that  was  notable  ;  but  it  lay  less  in 
perfection  of  the  contours  of  her  face,  than  in 
the  glorious  freshness  of  her  complexion,  and 
the  expression  of  her  magnificent  eyes,  at  once 
vivacious  and  sympathetic,  gentle  and  modest- 
glancing,  yet  brilliant  with  voluptuous  languor. 
Any  defects  of  feature  were  probably  those  which 
crowned  their  grace — and  when  as  in  the  matter  of 
a  slight  wrinkle,  which  in  advanced  years  she  said 
had  rudely  planted  itself  on  her  forehead,  the 
courtly  comment  on  this  of  Monsieur  de  St  Evre"- 
mond  was  to  the  effect  that  "  Love  had  placed  it 
there  to  nestle  in."  Her  well-proportioned  figure 
was  a  little  above  middle  height,  and  her  dancing 
was  infinitely  graceful. 

Provincial  by  descent,  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos 
was  a  born  Parisian,  in  that  word's  every 
sense.  Her  bright  eyes  first  opened  in  a  small 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  5 

house  lying  within  the  shadows  of  Notre- Dame, 
the  old  Cite4  itself,  the  heart  of  hearts  of  Paris,  still 
at  that  time  fair  with  green  spaces  and  leafy  hedge- 
rows, though  these  were  to  endure  only  a  few  years 
longer.  Her  occasionally  uttered  wish  that  she 
had  been  born  a  man,  hardly  calls  for  grave  con- 
sideration. The  desire  to  don  masculine  garments 
and  to  ride  and  fence  and  shoot,  and  to  indulge 
generally  in  manly  pursuits,  occurred  to  her  when 
she  was  still  short  of  twelve  years  old,  by  which 
time  she  was  able  to  write  well ;  and  her  earliest 
epistolary  correspondence  included  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  her  father.  It  ran  as  follows  : — 

"  MY  VERY  HONOURED  FATHER, — I  am  eleven  years 
old.  I  am  big  and  strong  ;  but  I  shall  certainly  fall  ill,  if 
I  continue  to  assist  at  three  masses  every  day,  especially 
on  account  of  one  performed  by  a  great,  gouty,  fat  canon, 
who  takes  at  least  twelve  minutes  to  get  through  the 
Epistle  and  the  Gospel,  and  whom  the  choir  boys  are 
obliged  to  put  back  again  on  his  feet  after  each  genu- 
flexion. I  would  as  soon  see  one  of  the  towers  of  Notre 
Dame  on  the  altar-steps ;  they  would  move  quite  as 
quickly,  and  not  keep  me  so  long  from  breakfast.  This  is 
not  at  all  cheering  I  can  tell  you.  In  the  interest  of  the 
health  of  your  only  child,  it  is  time  to  put  an  end  to  this 
state  of  things.  But  in  what  manner,  you  will  ask,  and 
how  is  it  to  be  set  about  ?  Nothing  more  simple.  Let  us 
suppose  that  instead  of  me,  Heaven  had  given  you  a  son  : 
I  should  have  been  brought  up  by  you,  and  not  by  my 
mother ;  already  you  would  have  begun  to  instruct  me  in 
arms,  and  mounted  me  on  horseback,  which  would  have 
much  better  pleased  me  than  twiddling  along  the  beads 
of  a  rosary  to  Aves,  Paters,  and  Credos.  The  present 
moment  is  the  one  for  me  to  inform  you  that  I  decide  to 
be  no  longer  a  girl,  and  to  become  a  boy. 


6  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  Will  you  therefore  arrange  to  send  for  me  to  come  to 
you,  in  order  to  give  me  an  education  suitable  to  my  new 
sex?  I  am  with  respect,  my  very  honoured  father, — 
Your  little  NINON." 

This  missive,  which  Ninon  contrived  to  get 
posted  without  her  mother's  knowledge,  met  with 
her  father's  hearty  approval.  No  more  time  was 
lost  than  it  took  to  make  her  a  handsome  suit  of 
clothes,  of  the  latest  mode,  the  one  bearing  the 
palm  for  grace  and  picturesqueness,  far  and  away 
from  all  the  fashions  of  men's  attire,  speaking  for 
itself  in  the  canvases  of  Vandyck  ;  and  Ninon  stands 
forth  in  the  gallant  bravery  of  silken  doublet,  with 
large  loose  sleeves  slashed  to  the  shoulder ;  her 
collar  a  falling  band  of  richest  point  lace  ;  the  short 
velvet  cloak  hanging  to  the  shoulder  ;  the  fringed 
breeches  meeting  the  wide-topped  boots  frilled 
about  with  fine  lawn  ;  the  plumed,  broad-brimmed 
Flemish  beaver  hat,  well-cocked  to  one  side  upon 
the  graceful  head,  covered  with  waves  of  dark  hair 
falling  to  the  neck ;  gauntleted  gloves  of  Spanish 
leather ;  her  rapier  hanging  from  the  richly- 
embroidered  baldric  crossing  down  from  the  right 
shoulder — a  picture  that  thrilled  the  heartof  Monsieur 
de  L'Enclos  with  ecstasy ;  and  when,  splendidly 
mounted,  she  rode  forth,  ruffling  it  gallantly  beside 
him,  he  was  the  proud  recipient  of  many  a  compli- 
ment and  encomium  on  the  son  of  whose  existence 
until  now  nobody  had  been  as  much  as  aware. 

These  delightful  days  were  destined,  however,  to 
come  quickly  to  an  end.  Fresh  disturbances  arose 
with  the  Huguenots  of  La  Rochelle  and  Loudun, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  7 

and  Monsieur  de  L'Enclos  was  summoned  to  join 
his  regiment.  Ninon  would  doubtless  have  liked 
of  all  things  to  go  with  him ;  but  while  this  was 
impossible,  she  was  spared  the  dreaded  alternative 
of  the  fat  canon  and  the  three  Masses  a  day,  by  her 
father  accepting  for  her  an  invitation  from  his 
sister,  the  Baroness  Montaigu,  who  lived  on  her 
estate  near  Loches,  on  the  borders  of  the  Indre. 
This  lady,  a  widow  and  childless,  had  long  been 
desirous  of  making  the  acquaintance  of  her  young 
niece,  and  on  his  way  north-west,  Monsieur  de 
L'Enclos  left  Ninon  at  the  chateau.  "  And  when  we 
have  settled  these  wretched  Huguenots, "said  Mon- 
sieur de  L'Enclos,  as  he  bade  her  farewell,  and  slipped 
a  double  louis  into  her  hands,  "  I  will  return  for  you." 

Madame  de  Montaigu  was  a  charming  lady,  of 
the  same  spirited,  gay  temperament  as  her  brother. 
She  received  her  niece  with  the  utmost  kindness, 
and  having  been  initiated  into  the  girl's  whim  for 
playing  the  boy,  she  laughingly  fell  in  with  it,  and 
addressed  her  with  the  greatest  gravity  as  "my 
pretty  nephew,"  introducing  to  her,  a — shall  it  be 
said  ? — another  young  gentleman,  by  name  Frangois 
de  la  Rochefoucauld,  Prince  de  Marsillac,  the 
son  of  her  intimate  friend,  the  Duchesse  de  la 
Rochefoucauld.  The  lad  was  a  pupil  at  the  cele- 
brated Jesuits'  College  of  La  Fleche,  founded  by 
Henri  IV.,  and  usually  spent  part  of  his  holidays 
at  the  Loches  chateau. 

A  year  or  two  older  than  Ninon,  Marsillac  was 
a  shy  and  retiring  boy,  and  at  first  rather  shrank 
from  his  robustious  new  companion,  who,  however, 


8  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

soon  contrived  to  draw  him  out,  putting  him  on  his 
mettle  by  pretending  to  doubt  his  prowess  with 
sword  and  rapier,  and  his  skill  generally  in  the 
noble  art  of  fencing.  She  challenged  him  to 
measure  weapons  with  her,  and  piqued  at  the  ideav 
of  one  younger  than  himself  pretending  to  martial 
superiority,  he  cast  aside  his  shyness,  and  the  two 
falling  on  guard,  clashed  and  clattered  their  steel 
in  the  galleries  and  chambers  of  the  house,  from 
morning  till  night,  until  the  noise  grew  intolerable, 
and  their  weapons  were  taken  away  from  them,  in  the 
fond  hope  of  securing  peace  and  quietness.  It  was, 
however,  only  partially  realised  ;  since  the  enforced 
idleness  of  Ninon's  hands  suggested  the  surreptitious 
annexing  of  the  head  forester's  gun,  with  which  she 
took  aim  at  the  blackbirds  in  the  park  avenues,  and 
the  young  does  in  the  forest :  and  then,  seeking  further 
variety, the  two  manned  the  pleasure-boat  on  the  lake, 
and  fared  into  such  perilous  places,  that  the  voyages 
became  strictly  tabooed,  and  the  boatwashiddenaway. 
The  constant  tintamarre  of  the  pair  fre- 
quently brought  its  punishment ;  and  one  day,  on 
the  occasion  of  a  too  outrageous  disturbance, 
they  were  locked  into  the  library.  Books  they 
had  no  particular  mind  for  that  glorious  sunshiny 
morning ;  still  less  enjoyable  was  the  prospect  of 
the  promised  dinner  of  dry  bread  and  water,  and 
they  sat  gloomily  gazing  upon  the  softly-waving 
boughs  of  the  trees,  and  up  through  the  open 
window  into  the  free  blue  sky.  Being  some 
eighteen  feet  from  the  ground,  it  had  not  been 
thought  necessary  to  bar  the  casement  beyond 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  9 

possibility  of  their  trying  to  escape.  The  feat 
would  assuredly  not  so  much  as  suggest  itself. 
Nevertheless,  the  temptation  crept  into  the  soul 
of  Ninon,  and  she  quickly  imparted  it  to  Marsillac. 

Looking  down,  they  saw  that  soft  green  turf 
belted  the  base  of  the  wall,  and  taking  hurried 
counsel,  they  climbed  to  the  window-sill,  and  at  the 
risk  of  their  necks,  clutching  by  the  carved  stone- 
work, and  the  stout  old  ivy  trails  with  which  it  was 
mantled,  they  dropped  to  the  ground,  and  then 
away  they  hied  by  the  clipped  yew  alleys,  merci- 
lessly trampling  the  parterres — away  till  they  found 
themselves  in  the  forest.  Free  now  as  the  sweet 
breeze  playing  in  their  hair,  they  ran  on,  prank- 
ing and  shouting,  now  following  the  little  beaten 
tracks,  now  bounding  over  the  brushwood,  heed- 
less of  the  rents  and  scratches  of  the  thorny  tangles  ; 
until  after  some  hours,  Marsillac's  pace  began  to 
drag,  and  very  soon  he  said  he  was  tired. 

"That  is  no  matter,"  said  Ninon,  "  we  will  hire 
a  carriage  at  the  first  place  we  come  to  " ;  but  the 
name  of  that  place  was  not  even  to  be  guessed  at ; 
inasmuch  as  they  had  not  the  least  notion  which 
way  they  had  taken.  The  great  thing  was  to 
arrive  at  last  at  Tours,  where  Ninon  said  they 
could  at  once  enlist  as  soldiers.  Marsillac  was, 
however,  tired — very  tired  ;  his  legs  ached,  and  he 
sat  down  for  a  little  rest,  observing  rather  crossly, 
in  the  cynical  way  which  sometimes  he  had,  that 
talking  was  all  very  well ;  but  for  one  thing  they 
were  not  big  enough  for  soldiers,  and  for  another, 
you  could  not  have  a  carriage  without  paying  for  it. 


io  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  Of  course  not,"  acquiesced  Ninon,  proudly 
producing  her  double  louis.  "  Can  I  not  pay?" 
But  the  hours  passed,  the  sun  declined,  and  not  so 
much  as  a  solitary  cottage  had  presented  itself  to 
their  eyes,  into  which  a  shade  of  anxiety  had  crept ; 
and  ere  long  they  began  to  feel  certain  they  saw 
wolves  and  lions  and  bandits  lurking  in  all  direc- 
tions behind  the  huge  black  forest  tree-trunks,  and 
young  Monsieur  de  la  Rochefoucauld  had  now  grown 
so  tired  that,  he  wanted  nothing  so  much  as  to  go 
to  bed.  Even  supper  was  a  secondary  considera- 
tion. Still,  desperately  hungry  as  they  both  were, 
liberty  is  such  a  glorious  thing ;  and  were  they  not 
free  ? — free  as  the  air  that  was  growing  so  chilly,  and 
the  pale  moonlight  rays  as  they  broke  through  some 
darkening  clouds,  seemed  to  make  it  almost  shud- 
dery.  These,  however,  suddenly  crossed  something 
white,  and  though  terrifying  for  the  moment,  the 
second  glance  to  which  they  schooled  themselves 
brought  reassurance.  The  white  patch  they  saw  was 
a  bit  of  a  cottage  wall  pierced  by  a  little  lattice,  through 
which  gleamed  the  yellow  light  of  a  tallow  candle; 
for  the  two,  creeping  close  to  the  panes,  peeped  in. 
But  noiselessly  as  they  strove  to  render  their  move- 
ments, the  attention  of  a  couple  of  big  dogs  of  the 
boule-dogue  breed  was  aroused,  to  the  extent  of  one 
of  them  fastening  upon  Marsillac's  haut-de-chausses, 
and  he  was  only  induced  to  forbear  and  drop  off, 
under  the  knotty,  chastising  stick  of  a  man,  ap- 
parently the  master  of  the  house,  who  turned  upon 
the  trembling  truants,  and  bade  them  clear  off  for  the 
vagabonds  they  were.  Their  mud-stained  and  torn 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  n 

apparel,  rendered  more  dilapidated  in  Marsillac's 
case,  by  the  dog's  teeth,  justified  to  a  great 
extent  the  man's  conclusions  ;  but  on  their 
asseverating  that  they  were  not  good-for-noth- 
ing at  all ;  but  two  very  well-born  young  gentle- 
men who  had  lost  their  way,  and  would  be  glad 
to  pay  generously  for  a  supper,  he  called  his  wife, 
and  committing  them  to  her  care,  bade  her  enter- 
tain them  with  the  best  her  larder  afforded,  and  to 
put  a  bottle  of  good  wine  on  the  table.  Then  he 
went  out,  while  an  excellent  little  piece  of  a  haunch 
of  roe-deer — cooking  apparently  for  the  supper  of  the 
worthy  couple  themselves — which  Dame  Jacqueline 
set  before  the  hungry  wanderers,  was  heartily 
appreciated  by  both.  Washed  down  by  a  glass  or 
two  of  the  fairly  good  wine,  Marsillac  grew  hope- 
lessly drowsy.  Tired  out,  he  wanted  to  go  to  bed. 
"  And  why  not  ?  "  said  the  dame,  not  without  a 
gleam  of  malice  in  her  eyes,  which  had  been  keenly 
measuring  the  two — "  but  I  have  only  one  bed  to 
offer  you,  our  own,  and  you  must  make  the  best  of 
it."  She  smiled  on. 

"  Not  I,"  said  Ninon,  rising  from  the  settle  like 
a  giant  refreshed — "  I  am  going  on  to  Tours.  The 
moon  is  lovely.  It  will  be  delightful.  How  much 
to  pay,  dame  ?  And  a  thousand  thanks  for  your 
hospitality.  Come,  Marsillac,"  and  Ninon  strode 
to  the  door.  But  the  glimpses  of  the  pillows  within 
the  shadow  of  the  alcove  had  been  too  much  for 
Marsillac,  and  he  had  already  divested  himself  of 
his  justaucorps,  and  jumped  into  bed. 

"  And  now,  my  young  gentleman,  what  about 


12  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

you  ? "  inquired  Jacqueline  of  the  embarrassed 
Ninon,  who  seated  herself  disconsolately  on  a  little 
three-legged  stool.  "  Come,  quick,  to  bed  with  you ! " 

"  No  !  "  said  Ninon,  "  I  prefer  this  stool." 

"  Oh,  ta  !  ta  !  that  will  never  do,"  said  Jacqueline, . 
who  was  beginning  to  heap  up  a  broad  old  settle 
with  a  cushion  or  two,  and  some  wraps.  "  Sooner 
than  that,  I  would  sit  on  that  stool  myself  all  night, 
and  give  you  up  my  place  here  beside  my — Ah  ! 
d  la  bonne  heure  !  There  he  is,"  she  cried,  as  the 
heavy  footsteps  of  the  master  of  the  house,  crunch- 
ing up  the  garden  path,  amid  the  barking  of  the 
dogs,  grew  audible — "  and,  as  I  say,  give  you  up  my 
own  place — " 

"  Ah,  mon  Dieu  !  no,"  distractedly  cried  Ninon, 
tearing  off  her  cloak  ;  and  bounding  into  the  alcove, 
to  the  side  of  the  already  fast  asleep  Marsillac,  she 
dragged  the  coverings  over  her  head. 

"  Well,  good-night  !  Sweet  repose,  you  charm- 
ing little  couple,"  laughed  on  Dame  Jacqueline,  as 
she  drew  the  curtains  to.  "  But  I'd  not  go  to 
sleep  yet  awhile,  look  you.  Some  friends  of  yours 
are  coming  here  to  see  you.  Ah  yes,  here  they 
are!  This  way,  ladies." 

And  the  next  moment,  Madame  de  Montaigu  and 
the  Duchesse  de  la  Rochefoucauld  stood  within  the 
alcove,  gazing  down  with  glances  beyond  power  of 
words  to  describe. 

Dragged  by  the  two  ladies  from  their  refuge, 
Marsillac  was  hustled  into  his  garments,  but  Ninon 
was  bidden  to  leave  hers  alone,  and  to  don  the 
petticoats  and  bodice  which  the  baroness  had 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  13 

brought  for  the  purpose.  "  No  more  masquerading, 
if  you  please,"  said  her  aunt,  in  tones  terrible  with 
indignation  and  severity,  "  while  I  have  you  under 
my  charge.  Now,  quick,  home  with  you  ! " 

And  home  they  were  conducted,  disconsolate, 
crestfallen,  arriving  there  in  an  extraordinarily 
short  space  of  time ;  for  the  chateau  lay  not  half  a 
league  off,  and  the  two  runaways,  who  had  imagined 
that  the  best  part  of  Touraine  had  been  covered  by 
them  that  fine  summer  day,  discovered  that  the 
mazes  of  the  forest  paths  had  merely  led  them  round 
and  about  within  hail  of  Loches,  and  Dame  Jacque- 
line and  her  husband  had  at  once  recognised  them. 
The  man  had  then  hastened  immediately  to  the 
chateau,  and  informed  the  ladies,  to  their  indescrib- 
able relief,  about  the  two  good-for-nothings  ;  for  the 
hue  and  cry  after  Mademoiselle  Ninon  and  young 
Monsieur  de  la  Rochefoucauld  had  grown  to  despera- 
tion as  the  sun  westered  lower  and  lower. 

Ninon  wept  tears  of  chagrin  and  humiliation  at 
the  penalty  she  had  to  pay  of  being  a  girl  again  ; 
but  Marsillac's  spirits  revived  with  astonishing 
rapidity.  He  even  seemed  to  be  glad  at  the  idea 
of  his  fellow-scapegrace  being  merely  one  of  the 
weaker  and  gentler  sex,  and  in  her  dejection  he 
was  for  ever  seeking  to  console  her.  "  I  love  you 
ever  so  much  better  this  way,  dear  one,"  he  was 
constantly  saying.  "  Ah,  Ninon,  you  are  beautiful 
as  an  angel ! " 

But  alas  !  for  the  approach  of  Black  Monday,  and 
the  holidays  ended,  Marsillac  had  to  go  back  to 
school. 


CHAPTER  II 

Troublesome  Huguenots — Madame  de  L'Enclos — An  Escapade,' 
and  Nurse  Madeleine — Their  Majesties — The  Hdtel 
Bourgogne — The  End  of  the  Adventure — St  Vincent  de  Paul 
and  his  Charities — Dying  Paternal  Counsel — Ninon's  New 
Home — Duelling — Richelieu  and  the  Times. 

THE  attack  upon  La  Rochelle,  and  the  inces- 
sant Huguenot  disturbances  generally,  detained 
Monsieur  de  L'Enclos  almost  entirely  away  from 
Ninon,  who  remained  at  Loches  in  the  care  of  her 
aunt.  From  time  to  time  he  paid  flying  visits  to 
Loches — one  stay,  however,  lasting  many  months, 
enforced  by  a  severe  wound  he  had  received. 
This  period  he  spent  in  continuing  the  instruction 
of  his  daughter,  on  the  plan  originally  mapped 
out,  of  fitting  her  to  shine  in  society.  The  course 
included  philosophy,  languages,  music,  with  his 
special  objections  to  the  matrimonial  state — engen- 
dered, or  at  least  aggravated  by  his  own  failure  in 
the  search  after  happiness  along  that  path.  Far 
better,  undesirable  as  he  held  the  alternative,  to  be 
wedded  to  cloistered  seclusion  than  any  man's  bride  ; 
and  well  knowing  Ninon's  horror  of  a  nun's  life,  he 
left  her  to  argue  out  the  rest  for  herself  in  her  own 
logical  fashion ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
whole  of  her  future  was  influenced  by  the  views  he 
then  inculcated.  A  modest  decorum  and  sobriety 
of  bearing  were  indeed  indispensable  to  good  breed- 
ing ;  but  carpe  diem  was  the  motto  of  Monsieur  de 

14 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  15 

L'Enclos,  as  he  desired  it  to  be  hers ;  and  every 
pleasure  afforded  by  this  one  life,  certainly  to  be 
called  ours,  ought  to  be  enjoyed  while  it  lasted  ; 
and  unswervingly,  to  the  final  page  of  her  long 
record,  Ninon  carried  out  the  comfortable  doctrine. 

At  seventeen  years  of  age,  she  was  perfectly 
equipped.  Beautiful  and  highly  accomplished, 
amiable  and  winning,  and  though  always  well 
dressed,  troubling  vastly  little  over  the  petty 
fripperies  and  vanities  ordinarily  engrossing  the 
female  mind,  she  appears  to  have  gained  the  com- 
mendation and  affection  of  her  aunt,  who  parted 
from  her  with  great  regret,  when  the  failing  health 
of  Madame  de  L'Enclos  necessitated  Ninon's  de- 
parture from  Loches,  to  go  to  Paris,  where  the 
invalid  was  residing. 

Monsieur  de  L'Enclos  fetched  Ninon  himself 
from  Loches,  and  in  a  day  or  two  she  was  by  her 
mother's  couch.  Madame  de  L'Enclos  received  her 
with  affection,  and  affectionately  Ninon  tended  her, 
going  unmurmuringly  through  the  old  courses  of 
religious  reading  and  observance,  even  to  renewing 
acquaintance  with  the  gouty  canon  in  Notre-Dame  ; 
but  the  invalid's  chamber  was  triste  and  monotonous, 
and  now  and  again  Ninon  effected  a  few  hours' 
escape  from  it,  ostensibly  for  the  purpose  of  attend- 
ing Mass  or  Benediction,  or  some  service  at  one  or 
other  of  the  neighbouring  churches.  One  of  them, 
St  Germain  1'Auxerrois,  was  of  special  interest  to 
Ninon,  by  reason  of  neighbouring  the  hotel  of 
Madame  de  la  Rochefoucauld  ;  and  she  one  day 
interrogated  the  guardian  of  the  porte  cochere,  in 


16  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

the  hope  of  learning  some  news  of  Marsillac,  whom 
Time's  chances  and  changes  had  entirely  removed 
from  her  ken ;  but  whose  memory  endured  in  her 
heart ;  for  she  had  been  very  sincerely  attached  to 
him.  The  Suisse  informing  her  that  he  very  rarely 
came  to  Paris,  the  philosophical  mind  of  Ninon 
soon  turned  for  consolation  elsewhere.  On  this 
plea  of  devout  attendance  at  church,  Ninon  was 
freely  permitted  leave  of  absence  from  the  sick 
room,  duennaed  by  her  old  nurse,  Madeleine,  who, 
however,  frequently  permitted  herself  to  be  dropped 
by  the  way,  at  a  small  house  of  public  entertain- 
ment, above  whose  door  ran  the  following  invitation 
to  step  inside  : — 

"  If  of  dyspepsia  you've  a  touch, 
Ache  of  tooth,  or  head,  or  such, 
There's  nothing  like  a  nip,  you  see, 
Of  my  delicious  Eau  de  Vie." 

On  one  of  these  occasions,  her  charge  went  off  in 
the  company  of  a  fairly  good-looking  and  agreeable 
young  gentleman  who  addressed  her,  as  she  halted 
for  an  instant  at  the  corner  of  the  Pont  Neuf,  in 
terms  of  mingled  respect  and  admiration.  Under 
his  escort,  she  gathered  some  conception  of  the 
manners  and  mode  of  existence  in  the  gay  city,  and 
in  the  course  of  their  first  walk  together,  they  ran 
against  two  of  her  cavalier's  friends,  who  were  to  be 
associated  intimately  with  her  future — Gondi,  the 
future  Cardinal  de  Retz,  and  the  young  Abbe* 
Scarron — Abbe!  by  courtesy,  since  he  never  went 
beyond  the  introductory  degree  of  an  ecclesiastical 
career.  In  the  company  of  these  three  merry 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  17 

companions,  she  visited  the  Hotel  Bourgogne,  a 
place  which  may  be  described  as  answering  more  to 
the  music-halls,  than  to  the  theatres  of  the  present 
time.  Its  frequenters  could  dine  or  sup  at  its 
tables,  take  a  turn  at  tarot  or  thimblerig,  and 
enjoy  a  variety  entertainment  carried  out  on  lines 
mainly  popular.  It  was  a  vast  edifice,  built  in  the 
Renaissance  style,  by  Francis  I.,  on  the  site  of  the 
gloomy,  fortress-like  mansion  of  Jean  Sans  Peur ; 
and  for  a  time  it  had  been  devoted  to  the  represent- 
ation of  the  Passion  and  Mystery  plays,  and  the 
performances  of  the  clerks  of  the  Basoche,  but 
grown  decadent  in  these  days  of  Louis  XIII. 
Ninon  obtained  on  her  way  a  passing  glimpse  of 
His  Majesty  as  he  drove  by,  describing  him  "  as  a 
man  of  twenty-five  ;  but  looking  much  older,  on 
account  of  his  morose  and  taciturn  expression, 
responding  to  the  acclamations  of  the  people  only 
by  a  cold  and  ceremonious  acknowledgment ;  while 
Anne  of  Austria,  who  followed  in  a  coach  pre- 
ceded by  other  carriages,  saluted  the  crowd  with 
gracious  smiles  and  wavings  of  her  white  hand." 

Having  partaken  of  a  light  collation  at  one  of 
the  tables,  the  party  gave  attention  for  a  while  to 
the  actors  on  the  stage,  whose  performances  were 
coarse,  and  not  much  to-  Ninon's  taste.  Then 
Gondi  and  Scarron  took  leave  of  the  two,  and  the 
sequel  of  the  adventure  proved  a  warning  to  young 
women  endowed  with  any  measure  of  self-respect, 
to  refrain  from  making  acquaintance  with  gallants 
in  the  street.  Fortunately  she  escaped  the  too 
ardent  attentions  of  the  man,  through  the  inter- 


i8  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

vention  and  protection  of  one  of  more  delicacy  and 
honour.  Though  this  one  was  quickly  equally 
enthralled,  he  went  about  his  wooing  of  the 
beautiful  girl  in  more  circumspect  fashion,  a  wooing 
nipped  in  the  bud  by  his  death  from  a  wound 
received  a  short  time  later. 

In  the  sombre  calm  of  the  invalid's  room  stands 
out  the  grand  figure  of  St  Vincent  de  Paul,  bring- 
ing to  her,  as  to  all  the  afflicted  and  heavy-laden,  the 
message  of  Divine  love  and  pity,  and  impressing 
Ninon  with  a  lasting  memory  of  reverence  for  the 
serene,  pure  face  and  gentle  utterances  of  a  heart 
filled  with  devotion  for  the  Master  he  served. 
Never  weary  in  well-doing,  seeming  ever  to  see 
God,  his  life  was  one  long  self-sacrifice  and  work 
of  charity.  Moved  to  such  compassion  for  the 
poor  convict  of  the  galleys,  who  wept  for  the  thought 
of  his  wife  and  children,  that  the  good  priest  took  the 
fetters  from  the  man's  limbs,  and  bidding  him  go  free 
and  sin  no  more,  wound  them  upon  his  own  wrists  : 
a  heart  so  thrilled  with  love  and  sorrow  for  the  lot 
of  the  miserable  little  forsaken  children  of  the 
great  city,  that  he  did  not  rest  till  he  had  effected 
the  reforms  so  sorely- needed  for  their  protection. 

Hitherto  the  small  waifs  and  strays  had  been 
under  the  superintendence  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Paris.  The  charge  of  them  was,  however,  delegated 
to  venal  nurses,  who  would  frequently  sell  them 
for  twenty  sous  each.  On  f£te  and  red-letter  days, 
it  had  for  long  been  a  custom  to  expose  the  little 
creatures  on  huge  bedsteads  chained  to  the  pave- 
ment of  Notre-Dame,  in  order  to  excite  the  pity 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  19 

of  the  people,  and  draw  money  for  their  main- 
tenance. St  Vincent  de  Paul  was  stirred  to  the 
endeavour  of  putting  a  stop  to  these  scandals  ;  and 
instituted  a  hospital  for  the  foundlings.  It  was 
situated  by  the  Gate  of  St  Victor,  and  the  work 
of  it  was  carried  on  by  charitable  ladies.  The 
Hospital  of  Jesus,  for  eighty  poor  old  men,  was 
another  of  his  good  works ;  while  he  ministered  to 
the  lunatics  of  the  Salp6triere,  and  to  the  lepers  of 
St  Lazare,  within  whose  church  walls  he  was 
laid  to  rest  when  at  last  he  rendered  up  his  life 
to  the  Master  he  had  served  ;  until  the  all-destroying 
Terror  disturbed  his  remains :  but  "  his  works  do 
follow  him."  His  compassion  alone  for  the  little 
ones  will  keep  his  memory  green  for  all  time. 

Kneeling  at  his  feet,  at  her  mother's  bidding,  the 
good  priest  bade  Ninon  rise,  saying  that  to  God 
alone  the  knee  should  be  bent.  Then  he  laid  his 
hand  on  her  head,  calling  down  a  benediction  on 
her,  and  praying  that  she  should  be  protected  from 
the  temptations  of  a  sinful  world.  His  words 
thrilled  her  powerfully  for  the  time  being.  She  felt 
moved  to  pour  out  all  her  heart  to  him,  but  "  Satan," 
she  says,  "held  me  fast,  and  would  not  let  me 
approach  God,"  and  the  spell  of  the  saintly  man's 
influence  passed  with  his  presence. 

A  few  days  later,  Madame  de  L'Enclos  died, 
calmly,  and  tended  by  her  husband  and  her  child, 
leaving  at  least  affectionate  respect  for  her  memory. 
A  year  later,  Monsieur  de  L'Enclos  died.  True  to 
the  last  to  his  rule  of  life,  the  dying  words  he 
addressed  to  his  daughter  were  these — 


20  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  My  child,  you  see  that  all  that  remains  to  me 
in  these  last  moments,  is  but  the  sad  memory  of 
pleasures  that  are  past ;  I  have  possessed  them  but 
for  a  little  while,  and  that  is  the  one  complaint  I 
have  to  make  of  Nature.  But  alas !  how  useless 
are  my  regrets !  You,  my  daughter,  who  will 
doubtless  survive  me  for  so  many  years,  profit  as 
quickly  as  you  may  of  the  precious  time,  and  be 
ever  less  scrupulous  in  the  number  of  your  pleasures, 
than  in  your  choice  of  them." 

The  fortune  of  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  had 
been  greatly  diminished  by  the  reckless  extrava- 
gances of  her  father ;  and  conscious,  probably,  of  this 
error  in  himself,  he  was  careful  to  protect  her  best 
interests,  by  purchasing  for  her  an  annuity  which 
brought  her  8,000  livres  annual  income.  His  pro- 
digality was,  however,  one  of  the  few  of  his 
characteristics  she  did  not  inherit.  On  the  contrary, 
she  displayed  through  life  a  conspicuous  power  of 
regulating  the  business  sides  of  it  with  a  prudence 
which  enabled  her  to  be  generous  to  her  friends  in 
need,  while  not  stinting  herself,  or  the  ordering  of 
her  households,  and  the  entertainment  of  the  com- 
pany she  delighted  in  ;  for  the  reunions  and  even- 
ings of  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  were  a  proverb 
for  all  that  was  at  once  charming  and  intellectual ; 
varied  as  they  were  with  sweet  music,  to  which  her 
own  singing  contributed — more  notably  still,  by 
her  performances  on  the  lute,  which  were  so  skilful ; 
though  by  these  hangs  the  complaint  that  she  ordi- 
narily needed  a  great  deal  of  pressing  before  she 
would  indulge  the  company — a  curious  exception  to 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  21 

the  ruling  of  the  ways  of  Ninon,  ordinarily  so 
entirely  innocent  of  affectation. 

At  this  time  her  beauty  and  accomplishments, 
united  with  her  fortune,  drew  many  suitors  for  her 
hand,  and  of  these  there  would  probably  have  been 
many  more,  but  for  the  certainty  she  made  no  secret 
of,  that  marriage  was  not  in  the  picture  of  the  life 
she  had  sketched  out  for  herself.  Her  passion  for 
liberty  of  thought  and  action  in  every  aspect,  fostered 
ever  by  her  father,  was  dominant  in  her,  and  not  to 
be  sacrificed  for  the  most  brilliant  matrimonial  yoke. 

One  of  her  first  proceedings  was  the  establish- 
ment of  a  home  for  herself.  It  consisted  of  a 
handsome  suite  of  rooms  in  the  rue  des  Tour- 
nelles,  in  the  quarter  of  the  Marais,  then  one 
of  the  most  fashionable  in  Paris,  and  distinguished 
for  the  many  intellectual  and  gifted  men  and  women 
congregating  in  the  stately,  red-bricked,  lofty-roofed 
houses  surrounding  the  planted  space  in  whose 
centre,  a  little  later,  was  to  stand  the  equestrian 
statue  of  Louis  XIII.  The  square  had  been  planned 
by  Mansard,  and  Ninon's  home — Number  23 — had 
been  occupied  by  the  famous  architect  himself. 

A  few  doors  off  was  the  residence  of  Cardinal 
Richelieu,  and  within  the  convenient  distance  of  a 
few  houses — Number  6 — lived  Marion  Delorme. 
For  years  this  Place  Royale,  as  it  is  now  called — 
at  one  time  Place  des  Vosges — had  been,  until 
Mansard  transformed  it,  held  an  accursed  spot,  and 
let  go  to  ruin ;  for  here  it  was  stood  the  palace  of 
the  Tournelles,  a  favourite  residence  of  Henri  II., 
and  in  its  courtyard  took  place  the  fatal  encounter 


22  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

between  him  and  the  Englishman  Montgomery, 
whose  lance  pierced  through  the  king's  eye,  to  his 
brain,  and  caused  his  death.  Catherine  de  Me"dicis, 
in  her  grief  and  indignation  at  the  tragic  ending  of 
that  day's  tilt,  caused  the  palace  to  be  razed  to  the 
ground  ;  but  the  old  associations  clung  to  the  place, 
for  it  became  the  favourite  spot  for  the  countless 
duels  which  the  young  bloods  and  others  were  con- 
stantly engaging  in ;  until  Richelieu  put  an  almost 
entire  stop  to  them  by  his  revival  of  the  summary 
law  against  the  practice,  whose  penalty  was  death 
by  decapitation.  The  great  cardinal's  ruling  was 
not  to  be  evaded,  and  several  men  of  rank  suffered 
death  upon  the  scaffold  for  disobeying  it. 

Away  beyond  the  St  Antoine  Gate  at  Picpus, 
Ninon  established  another  dwelling  for  herself,  in 
which  it  was  her  custom  to  rusticate  during  the  autumn. 

Beautiful — though  in  features  not  faultlessly  so 
— she  bore  some  resemblance  to  Anne  of  Austria, 
the  adored  of  Buckingham,  a  likeness  close  enough 
to  admit  of  the  success  of  a  freak  played  years 
later,  when  she  contrived  to  deceive  Louis  the 
Great  into  the  notion  that  the  shade  of  his  mother 
appeared  to  him,  to  chide  him  for  certain  evil  ways. 
Her  nose,  like  the  queen's,  was  large,  and  her 
beautiful  teeth  gleamed  through  lips  somewhat  full 
in  their  curves  ;  her  hair  was  dark  and  luxuriant, 
while  her  intelligent  and  sympathetic  eyes  ex- 
pressed an  indescribable  mingling  of  reserve  and 
voluptuous  languor,  magnetising  all,  coupled  as  it 
was  with  the  charm  of  her  gentle,  courteous  manner 
and  conversation  that  sparkled  with  the  wit  and 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  23 

sentiment  of  a  mind  enriched  by  careful  training 
and  study  of  the  literature  of  her  own  time,  and  of 
the  past.  It  was  her  crowning  grace  that  she  made 
no  display  of  these  really  sterling  acquirements, 
and  entertained  a  wholesome  detestation  of  the 
pedantry  and  prtcieuse  taint  of  the  learned  ladies 
mocked  at  so  mercilessly  by  that  dear  friend  of 
hers,  Moliere.  Few  could  boast  a  complexion  so 
delicately  fresh  as  hers.  She  stands  sponsor  to 
this  day  to  toilette  powders  and  cosmetics.  Bloom 
a.n&  poudre  de  Ninon  boxes  find  place  on  countless 
women's  dressing-tables  to  this  hour  ;  but  in  her 
own  case  art  rendered  little  assistance,  possibly 
none  at  all ;  except  for  one  recipe  she  employed 
daily  through  her  life.  The  secret  of  it,  sufficiently 
transparent,  was  equally  in  the  possession  of  the 
beautiful  Diana  of  Poitiers,  who  also  retained  her 
beauty  for  such  a  length  of  years. 

For  all  who  list  to  read,  her  letter- writing  powers 
stand  perpetuated  in  her  published  correspondence, 
and  while  the  theme  is  almost  unvarying — the  philo- 
sophy of  love  and  friendship — her  wit  and  fancy 
treat  it  in  a  thousand  graceful  ways.  Fickle  as 
she  was  in  love,  she  was  constant  in  friendship,  and 
the  heat  of  the  first,  often  so  startlingly  transient, 
frequently  settled  down  into  life-long  camaraderie 
rarely  destroyed.  While  not  ungenerous  to  her 
rivals  in  the  tender  passion,  she  could  be  danger- 
ously jealous ;  but  gifted  with  the  saving  grace  of 
humour,  of  which  women  are  said  to  be  destitute, 
the  anger  and  malice  were  oftentimes  allowed  to 
die  down  into  forgiveness,  and  perhaps  also,  forget- 


24  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

fulness.  Rearing  and  temperament  set  Ninon  de 
L'Enclos  apart;  even  among  those  many  notable 
women  whose  intimate  she  was.  Essentially  aproduct 
of  her  century,  she  lived  her  own  life  in  its  fulness. 
Following  ever  her  father's  counsel,  she  was  at  once 
as  boundlessly  unrestricted  in  her  observance  of  that 
perfect  law  of  liberty  to  which  she  yielded  obedience, 
as  she  was  scrupulous  in  selection.  Says  Monsieur 
de  St  Evre*mond  of  her — "  Kindly  and  indulgent 
Nature  has  moulded  the  soul  of  Ninon  from  the 
voluptuousness  of  Epicurus  and  the  virtue  of  Cato." 
And  at  last,  after  an  interval  of  six  years,  Ninon 
and  Marsillac  met  again.  It  was  in  the  salon  of 
the  H6tel  de  Rambouillet.  Mademoiselle  de 
L'Enclos,  beautiful,  sought  after,  already  the  centre 
of  an  admiring  circle,  the  talk  of  Paris,  and 
Monsieur  le  Capitaine  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  already 
for  two  or  three  years  a  gallant  soldier,  chivalrous, 
romantic,  handsome  with  the  beauty  of  intellect, 
interesting  from  his  air  of  gentle,  cynical  pensive- 
ness,  ardent  in  the  cause  of  the  queen  so  mercilessly 
persecuted  by  Richelieu,  and  therefore  lacking  the 
advancement  his  qualities  merited,  still,  however, 
finding  opportunity  to  indulge  in  the  gallantries  of 
the  society  he  so  adorned.  Some  one  has  said 
that  few  ever  less  practically  recognised  the 
doctrines  of  Monsieur  de  la  Rochefoucauld's 
maxims,  than  did  Monsieur  de  la  Rochefoucauld 
himself,  and  the  aphorisms  have  been  criticised,  and 
exception  has  again  and  again  been  taken  to  them, 
not  perhaps  altogether  unreasonably ;  but  in  any 
case  he  justified  himself  of  his  dictum  that  "love 


ARMANI)  JEAN  DUPLES SIS 

Cardinal  Due  deRicliclicu 

4  D e 


To  face  page  24. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  25 

is  the  smallest  part  of  gallantry  "  ;  for  when  at  last — 
and  it  took  some  time — Marsillac  recognised  his  old 
scapegrace  chum  of  the  Loches  chateau,  homage  and 
admiration  he  yielded  her  indeed  ;  but  it  was  far  from 
undivided,  and  shared  in  conspicuously  by  her  rival, 
Marion  Delorme,  a  woman  of  very  different  mould 
from  Ninon.  Like  her,  beautiful  exceedingly,  but 
more  impulsive,  softer-natured,  more  easily  apt  to  give 
herself  away  and  to  regret  later  on.  Intellectually 
greatly  Ninon's  inferior,  she  was  yet  often  a  thorn  in 
the  side  of  the  jealous  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos. 

The  times,  as  a  great  commentator  has  defined 
them,  were  indeed  peculiar.  The  air,  full  of 
intrigue,  was  maintained  by  Richelieu  at  fever- 
heat,  and  wheel  worked  fast  and  furiously  within 
wheel.  There  was  the  king's  party,  though  the 
king  was  little  of  it,  or  in  it.  The  iron  hand  of 
the  Cardinal  Prime-Minister  was  upon  the  helm. 
Richelieu,  who  never  stayed  in  resistance  to  the 
encroaching  efforts  of  Spain — in  his  policy  of  crush- 
ing the  feudal  strength  of  the  nobility  of  the  pro- 
vinces— or  in  annihilating  Huguenot  power  as  a 
political  element  in  the  State — saw  in  every  man 
and  woman  not  his  violent  partisan,  an  enemy  to 
France  and  to  the  Crown.  How  far  he  was  justi- 
fied, how  far  he  could  have  demanded  "  Is  there 
not  a  cause  ? "  stands  an  open  question  ;  but  the 
effect  was  terrible.  The  relentless  hounding  down  of 
the  suspected,  forms  a  page  of  history  stained  with 
the  blood  of  noble  and  gallant  men.  Richelieu's 
crafty  playing  with  his  marked  victims,  chills  the 
soul.  They  were  as  ninepins  in  his  hands,  lured  to 


26  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

their  destruction,  sprung  upon,  crushed  often  when 
most  they  believed  themselves  secure. 

Sending  de  Thou  to  the  scaffold  for  his  supposed 
complicity  in  the  crime  Richelieu  fixed  on  Cinq-Mars, 
the  handsome,  insouciant,  brilliant  young  fellow  he 
had  himself  provided  for  the  king's  amusement,  and 
when  the  time  was  ripe,  having  done  him  to  death 
by  the  Lyons  headsman  upon  a  superficially-based 
accusation.  Richelieu  was  dying  then.  The  con- 
sciousness of  Death's  hand  upon  his  harassed,  worn- 
out  frame  was  fully  with  him  ;  but  no  pity  was  in 
his  heart  for  Cinq-Mars.  It  might  have  been  the 
old  rankling  jealousy  that  urged  him  on,  for  the 
stern,  inflexible  Armand  de  Richelieu  was  a  poor, 
weak  tool  of  a  creature  where  worn  ^n  were  con- 
cerned. "  There  is  no  such  word  as  fail,"  he  was 
wont  to  say  ;  yet  in  his  relations  with  wo.nen,  and  in 
his  gallantries  he  failed  egregiously.  No  fear  of 
him  held  back  Marion  Delorme  from  the  arms  of 
Cinq- Mars,  when  she  yielded  to  his  persuasions  to 
fly  with  him  ;  and  self-love  must  have  been  bitterly 
wounded,  when  Anne  of  Austria  laughed  his  advances 
to  scorn.  Richelieu  was  not  a  lady's  man.  Nature 
had  given  him  a  brain  rarely  equalled,  a  stupendous 
capacity  and  penetration,  but  she  had  neglected  him 
personally  —  meagre,  sharp-featured,  cadaverous, 
scantily  furnished  as  to  beard  and  moustache,  and 
lean  as  to  those  red-stockinged  legs.  True,  or  the 
mere  fruit  of  cruel  scandal,  that  saraband  pas  seul 
he  was  said  to  have  been  duped  into  performing  for 
the  delectation  of  the  queen,  will  hang  ever  by  the 
memory  of  the  great  Lord  Cardinal. 


CHAPTER   III 

A  Life-long  Friend — St  Evre'mond's  Courtly  ,M?/— Rabelais  v. 
Petronius — Society  and  the  Salons — The  Golden  Days — 
The  Man  in  Black. 

SCARCELY  was  acquaintance  renewed  with  her 
still  quite  youthful  old  friend,  Monsieur  de  la 
Rochefoucauld,  than  Ninon  met  for  the  first  time 
St  Evre*mond — Charles  de  St  Denys,  born  1613,  at 
St  Denys  le  Guast  near  Coutances  in  Normandy — 
the  man  with  whom  her  name  is  so  indissolubly 
connected,  traversing  nearly  all  the  decades  of  the 
seventeenth  century  into  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth,  his  span  of  life  about  equalling  her 
own,  and  though  for  half  of  it  absent  from  her  and 
from  his  country,  maintaining  the  links  of  their 
intimacy  in  their  world-famed  correspondence. 

Like  Ninon's,  his  individuality  was  exceptional. 
A  born  wit,  for  even  in  his  childhood,  the 
soubriquet  of  "Esprit"  was  bestowed  upon  him, 
his  three  brothers  being  severally  styled — "The 
Honest  Man,"  "The  Soldier,"  and  "The  AbbeV' 
Charles  de  St  Evre*mond  was  distinguished  by  a 
brilliant  and  singularly  amiable  intelligence.  As 
a  man  of  letters  he  was  rarely  gifted ;  though  he 
evaded,  more  than  sought,  the  celebrity  attaching  to 
the  profession  of  literature,  writing  only,  it  may 
be  truly  said  of  him — 

"...  in  numbers 
For  the  numbers  came." 
27 


28  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

he  never  put  forward  his  own  works  for  publica- 
tion, and  it  was  only  towards  the  close  of  his  life 
that  his  consent  was  obtained  for  such  publication. 
During  his  lifetime,  many  of  his  pieces  in  prose  and 
in  verse  were  printed  and  circulated  in  Paris  and  in 
London,  where,  at  the  Courts  of  Charles  II.  and  of 
William  III.,  forty  years  of  his  life  were  spent ;  but 
these  were  pirated  productions,  surreptitiously  issued 
by  his  "  friends,"  to  whom  he  occasionally  confided 
his  compositions,  and  they,  for  their  own  gain,  sold 
them  to  the  booksellers,  who  eagerly  sought  them. 
These  pieces  were  altogether  unfaithful  to  their 
originals,  being  altered  to  suit  the  particular  senti- 
ments of  readers,  and  added  to,  in  order  to  increase 
the  bulk  of  the  volumes.  The  style  of  St  Evrdmond's 
writings  has  been  the  subject  of  encomium  and 
warm  appreciation  from  numerous  learned  critics 
and  litterateurs,  notably  St  Beuve  and  Dryden. 

One  contemporary  editor,  withholding  his  name, 
content  with  styling  himself  merely  "  A  Person  of 
Honour,"  has,  at  all  events,  yielded  due  homage 
to  St  Evremond's  character  and  genius.  Com- 
menting on  the  essays  which  have  come  within  his 
ken,  he  writes — 

"  Their  fineness  of  expression,  delicacy  of  thought  are 
united  with  the  ease  of  a  gentleman,  the  exactness  of  a 
scholar,  and  the  good  sense  of  a  man  of  business.  It  is 
certain,"  he  adds,  "that  the  author  is  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  the  world,  and  has  conversed  with  the  best 
sort  of  men  to  be  found  in  it." 

To  this  may  be  added  the  praise  of  Dryden — 
"There  is  not  only  a  justness  in  his  conceptions,  which 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  29 

is  the  foundation  of  good  writing,  but  also  a  purity  of 
language,  and  a  beautiful  turn  of  words,  so  little  under- 
stood by  modern  writers." 

Agreeable,  witty,  an  excellent  conversationalist, 
and  of  real  amiability  of  character  and  disposition, 
St  Evre'mond's  aim  in  life  was  to  enjoy  it.  Indo- 
lently inclined,  he  accepted  the  ills  and  con- 
trarieties of  existence,  finding  even  in  them  some 
soul  of  good.  Always  fond  of  animals,  he  sur- 
rounded himself  in  later  years  with  cats  and  dogs, 
holding  them  eminently  sympathetic  and  amusing ; 
and  he  was  wont  to  say  that  in  order  to  divert  the 
uneasinesses  of  old  age,  it  was  desirable  to  have 
before  one's  eyes  something  alive  and  animated. 

He  possessed  enough  money  for  comfortable 
maintenance  from  several  sources.  Both  Charles  II. 
and  William  III.  settled  "gratifications"  on  him. 
His  creed  was  a  formless  one,  but  he  was  no  atheist, 
for  all  the  charge  of  it  laid  to  him.  He  was,  on  the 
contrary,  quick  to  rebuke  the  profanity  and  laxity 
of  mockers.  He  himself  sums  up  his  religion  in 
these  lines — 

"  Justice  and  Charity  supply  the  place 
Of  rigid  penance  and  a  formal  face. 
His  piety  without  inflicted  pains 
Flows  easy,  and  austerity  disdains. 
God  only  is  the  object  of  his  care, 
Whose  goodness  leaves  no  room  for  black  despair. 
Within  the  bosom  of  His  providence 
He  places  his  repose,  his  bliss  and  sure  defence." 

His  writings  were  voluminous,  flowing  from  his 
pen  as  a  labour  he  delighted  in.  Their  themes 


30  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

were  varied,  brought  from  the  rich  stores  of  his 
mind,  his  most  enduring  and  favourite  subjects 
being  classical  Latin  lore,  and  the  drama  of  his  own 
day,  lustrous  with  great  names  in  France,  as  in  the 
country  of  his  adoption. 

Such,  and  much  more,  was  St  Evrdmond  the 
man  of  letters,  and  besides,  he  was  a  skilful  and 
gallant  soldier,  distinguished  for  his  brilliant  sword- 
play,  when  he  entered  upon  the  exercises  pre- 
paratory for  his  military  career.  In  that  capacity 
he  won  the  approval  and  friendship  of  the  Duke 
d'Enghien,  fighting  by  the  prince's  side  at  Rocroi 
and  Nordlingen  ;  though  later  a  breach  occurred 
in  their  relations,  when  St  Evrdmond  indulged 
in  some  raillery  at  his  expense.  The  great 
man  vastly  enjoyed  persiflage  of  the  sort  where 
the  shafts  were  levelled  at  others  ;  but  he  brooked 
none  of  them  aimed  at  himself,  and  St  Evre"mond 
was  deprived  of  his  lieutenancy. 

Sometimes  the  wit  carried  a  more  flattering 
note,  and  once  when  disgrace  shadowed  him  at 
Court  for  having  appeared  in  the  Sun-King's 
presence  in  a  pourpoint  of  a  fashion  not  quite 
up  to  latest  date,  he  said  to  His  Majesty — "Sire, 
away  from  you,  one  is  not  merely  unhappy  :  one 
also  becomes  ridiculous."  The  conceit  wiped  away 
St  Evr^mond's  disfavour.  He  was  a  friend  of 
several  of  the  other  renowned  soldiers  of  his  time, 
Turenne  among  them.  It  was  one  of  Condi's 
great  delights  to  be  read  to  by  St  Evre"mond. 
The  duke  took  pleasure  in  the  lighter  classics. 
Petronius  had  its  attractions  for  him,  as  it  had  for 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  31 

the  society  generally  of  the  time ;  but  he  would 
have  none  of  Rabelais,  finding  the  grossness  of  the 
Cure*  of  Meudon  intensely  distasteful,  and  refusing 
to  listen  to  the  adventures  of  Gargantua  and 
Pantagruel  and  Grandgousier,  and  all  their  tribe, 
he  insisted  on  the  book  being  thrown  aside.  The 
merry  romances  of  Petronius,  or,  at  least,  attributed 
to  that  "  Elegantice  Arbiter"  of  a  pagan  court,  while 
ill  adapted  as  milk  for  babes,  as  perhaps  even  for 
the  more  advanced  in  years,  were  not  soiled  with 
the  lowermost  grossness  of  the  Christian  man's  pen, 
and  they  were  not  without  appeal  to  the  students  of 
the  classic  literature  opened  up  by  the  Renaissance, 
even  as  the  milder  licence  of  Boccaccio  charmed. 

Truly,  if  the  times  were  peculiar,  it  cannot  be 
said  of  them  that  they  were  stagnant ;  and  in  move- 
ment and  activity,  the  present  century  bears  them 
some  sort  of  comparison  ;  though  beyond  this  the 
parallel  fails,  to  the  winning  of  the  days  of  Ninon. 
Autres  temps,  autres  mceurs,  and  while  there  may  be 
more  veneer  of  morality  in  these  present  years  of 
grace  than  then,  the  question  remains  whether  the 
sense  of  it  is  deeper  and  more  widely  observed. 
It  is  one,  however,  outside  the  limits  of  these  pages. 
Only  that  the  aroma  and  delicacy  of  educated  social 
intercourse  do  not  permeate  society  as  in  that 
time  is  undoubted.  Of  course  the  impression 
existing  in  some  minds  of  the  widespread  canker 
of  profligacy  and  licentiousness  then  openly  prevail- 
ing, is  perverting  of  facts,  since  punctilio  and  the 
Court  etiquette  of  the  most  punctilious  of  monarchs 
would  not,  and  could  not,  have  countenanced  it. 


32  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Such  licence  was  indulged  in  by,  and  confined,  as  it 
is  now,  to  a  certain  section  of  the  "smart"  com- 
munity, and  this  possibly  no  such  narrow  one ;  but 
at  least  it  was  veiled  then  by  certain  elements  of 
good  taste,  and  some  womanly  graces  now  far  to 
seek.  Not  then,  as  now,  the  motor  craze  made 
existence  uglier ;  then  as  not  now,  the  bold,  inane 
stares  and  painted  faces  of  many  of  the  gentler  sex 
frequenting  the  highways  and  byways,  were  mostly 
screened  bymasks,  and  anawkward  gaitwas  mantled. 
Some  cultivation  of  expression,  and  a  little  more 
sense,  if  not  wit,  graced  the  tongues  now  devoted 
to  slang  and  the  misuse  of  words  which  hang  about 
the  higher  education ;  while  the  clamour  of  ill-advised 
women  without  doors  was  unknown.  The  com- 
ments of  a  recent  French  writer  on  the  charm  of 
life  in  those  past  days,  are  too  valuable  to  be  laid 
aside  unrecorded.  "The  keen  intellects  of  the 
time,"  he  writes,  "caught  a  glimpse  of  everything, 
desired  everything,  and  grasped  eagerly  at  every 
new  idea.  Only  those/'  he  goes  on  to  say,  quoting 
Talleyrand,  "  could  realise  the  joy  of  being  alive. 
The  childish  present-day  philosophy  of  optimism 
and  effort  fails  to  lend  life  a  charm  it  never  knew 
before.  The  most  insignificant  gallant  of  the  Court 
of  Louis  experienced  more  varied  sensations  than 
any  rough-rider  or  industrial  king  has  ever  been  able 
to  procure  for  himself,"  Admittedly,  the  evils  of  the 
time  cried  aloud  for  redress  of  wrongs  which  were 
all  to  be  washed  away  later  by  the  river  of  blood  ;  but 
these  had  been  more  ameliorated  than  aggravated 
by  the  scholarship  of  thoughtful  writers.  Wit, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  33 

and  the  sense  of  beauty  and  delicacy  of  expres- 
sion, carried,  not  unfrequently  it  is  true,  to  affecta- 
tions and  absurdity,  was  the  order  of  the  day, 
binding  men  and  women  in  links  of  an  intellectual 
sympathy,  whose  pure  gold  was  unalloyed  by  baser 
metal.  Those  reunions  in  the  salons  of  the  great 
ladies,  must  have  been  delightful,  thronged  as  they 
were  with  distinguished  men,  and  with  women,  many 
of  them  beautiful,  spirituelle,  or  both.  But  for  the 
sparkle  of  true  wit,  the  music  of  sweet  voices,  the 
ripple  of  verse  and  epigram,  the  popularity  of  those 
gatherings  would  not  have  been  so  long  maintained. 
The  atmosphere  of  them  was  sweet  with  the  lighter 
learning  of  old  Rome  and  Greece,  and  the  gaiety  of 
graceful  modern  rhymes,  or  the  sentiment  of  the 
latest  sonnet.  The  passing  of  centuries  had  now 
left  far  behind  the  barbaric  clash  of  warfare,  and 
widened  the  old  limitations  of  medisevalism  and 
Scholasticism.  From  the  hour  the  cruel  knife  of 
Ravaillac  stilled  the  noble  heart  of  the  great  Henri, 
the  times  had  ripened  to  the  harvest  of  a  literature 
resplendent  with  promise  of  illustrious  names. 

Ever  zealous  for  the  glory  of  France,  Richelieu 
founded  the  Academic  Franchise ;  and  later  the 
college  of  the  Sorbonne,  where  now  he  lies 
magnificently  entombed,  was  rebuilt  by  him,  and 
devoted  to  its  old  purpose  of  a  centre  of  learning  ; 
and  as  of  old,  and  as  ever,  men  thronged  from  near 
and  from  afar  to  Paris  for  the  study  of  art  and 
learning,  and  to  pay  such  homage  to  the  modern 
Muses  and  enjoy  their  smiles,  as  good  fortune 
might  allow. 


34  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Amid  such  environment  it  was,  that  Ninon  em- 
barked upon  the  stream  of  the  life  she  had  elected 
to   follow,    hoping    to    pass,   as    indeed    she   did, 
through  the  years  serenely  and    in   fair   content. 
If  now  and  again  some  minor  questions  of  spirit 
troubled  her — conscience  it  could  scarcely  be  called, 
since  by  the  lights  she  had  chosen  to  guide  her, 
conscience  could  hardly  be  reproachful — it  was  but 
passingly.      Yet  the  tale  goes  of  the  visits  of  a 
Man  in  Black,  a  most  mysterious  personage,  who 
at  his  first  interview,  when  she  was  about  eighteen 
years  old,  brought  her  a  phial  containing  a  rose- 
coloured  liquid,  of  which  a  little,  a  mere  drop,  went 
a  very  long  way.     It  was  the  recipe  for  prolonged 
youthfulness,  and  certainly  must  have  been  very 
efficacious.    It  was,  he  said,  to  be  mixed  with  a  great 
deal  of  pure  water,  quite  as  much  as  a  good-sized 
bath  would  contain — and  a  bath  of  pure  water  is, 
of  course,  in  itself  a  very  healthful  sort  of  thing. 
Many  a  year  went  by  before  the  Man  in  Black — or 
one  so  like  him  as  to  be  his  very  double — came 
again,  and  Ninon  was  prone  to  shrink  at  the  re- 
membrance of  him.     When  he  did  come,  it  was  to 
inform  her  that  some   years  of  this  life  still  lay 
before  her ;  and  then  for  the  third  time  that  Man  in 
Black  presented  himself,  and —    But  the  cry  is  a  far 
one  to  seventy  years  hence,  and  during  that  time, 
as  far  as  Ninon  was  concerned,  he  remained  in  his 
own  place,  wherever  that  might  be  ;  and  if,  after 
all,  he  had  been  but  a  dream,  in  any  case  the  shadow 
of  his  sable  garb  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
very  constantly  cast  upon  the  mirror  of  her  exist- 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  35 

ence.  That  was  bright  with  love  and  friendship, 
the  love  and  friendship  of  both  sexes,  and  truly  if 
in  love  she  was  frankly  fickle  a  merveille,  in  friend- 
ship she  was  constant  and  unchanging.  Ever  follow- 
ing the  dying  parental  counsel,  she  was  fastidious 
in  the  choice  of  the  aspirants  to  her  favours.  In 
her  relations  with  women  and  men  alike,  honest 
and  honourable  and  full  of  a  kindly  charm  which 
made  her  exceptionally  bonne  camarade.  It  was 
small  wonder  that  the  salon  of  Mademoiselle 
Ninon  de  L'Enclos  was  a  centre  of  foregathering 
greatly  sought  after. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  "Delicious  Person  " — Voiture's  Jealousy — A  Tardy  Recognition 
— Coward  Conscience — A  Protestant  Pope — The  Hotel  de 
Rambouillet — St  Evremond — The  Duel — Nurse  Madeleine 
— Cloistral  Seclusion  and  Jacques  Callot — "Merry  Com- 
panions Every  One  " — and  One  in  Particular. 

Six  years  had  passed  since  as  girl  and  boy  Ninon 
and  Marsillac  had  parted  at  Loches.  At  sixteen 
years  old  he  had  entered  the  army,  and  was  now 
Monsieur  le  Capitaine  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  returned 
to  Paris  invalided  by  a  serious  wound  received 
in  the  Valtellina  warfare.  Handsome,  with  some- 
what pensive,  intellectual  features,  chivalrous  and 
amiable,  he  was  "  a  very  parfite  gentle  knight," 
devoted  to  the  service  of  the  queen,  which  sorely 
interfered  with  his  military  promotion  :  devotion  to 
Anne  of  Austria  was  ever  to  meet  the  hatred  of 
the  cardinal,  and  to  live  therefore  in  peril  of  life. 

The  daring  young  hoyden  of  Loches  was  now 
a  graceful,  greatly  admired  woman  of  the  world, 
welcomed  and  courted  in  the  ranks  of  the  society 
to  which  her  birth  entitled  her. 

It  was  quite  possible  that  the  change  in  her 
appearance  was  sufficiently  great  to  warrant  de  la 
Rochefoucauld's  failure  to  recognise  her  in  the 
salon  of  Madame  de  Rambouillet  when  he  passed 
her,  seated  beside  her  chaperon,  the  Duchesse  de  la 
Fertd — not,  however,  without  marking  her  beauty  ; 
and  he  inquired  of  the  man  with  whom  he  was  walk- 

36 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  37 

ing  who  the  "  delicious  person  "  was.  The  gentle- 
man did  not  know.  It  was  the  first  time,  he  be- 
lieved, that  the  lady  had  been  seen  in  the  brilliant 
company.  The  impressionable  young  prince  lost 
little  time  in  securing  himself  an  introduction, 
further  economising  it  by  expressing  his  sentiments 
of  admiration  so  ardently,  that  they  touched  on  a 
passionate  and  tender  declaration.  Ninon  accepted 
this  with  the  equanimity  distinguishing  her ;  she  was 
already  accustomed  to  a  pronounced  homage  very 
thinly  veiled.  It  was  to  her  as  the  sunshine  is  to 
the  birds  of  the  air,  almost  indispensable ;  but  she 
found  the  avowals  of  his  sentiments  slightly  disturb- 
ing in  the  reflection  that  Marsillac  had  altogether 
forgotten  his  Ninon.  That,  in  fact,  he  had  done 
long  since.  The  fidelity  of  de  la  Rochefoucauld 
in  those  days,  was  scarcely  to  be  reckoned  on  even 
by  hours.  Already  he  was  in  the  toils  of  Ninon's 
beautiful  rival,  Marion  Delorme,  a  woman  Ninon 
herself  describes  as  " adorably  lovely."  Beauty 
apart,  the  very  antithesis  of  Mademoiselle  de 
L'Enclos,  weaker  of  will,  more  pliably  moulded, 
warm-hearted,  impulsive,  romantically  natured,  apt 
to  be  drawn  into  scrapes  and  mistakes  which  Ninon 
was  astute  enough  rarely  to  encounter.  The  two 
women  lived  within  a  stone's  throw  of  each  other, 
and  it  needed  hardly  the  gossip  of  the  place  for 
Ninon  to  observe  that  Marsillac  was  but  one  more 
of  the  vast  company  of  arch-deceivers.  It  was 
Voiture,  the  poet  and  renowned  reformer  of  the 
French  tongue,  who  hinted  the  fact  to  Ninon  with, 
no  doubt,  all  his  wonted  grace  of  expression, 


38  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

further  inspired  by  jealousy  of  the  handsome  young 
captain,  that  at  the  very  moment  he  was  speaking, 
de  la  Rochefoucauld  was  spending  the  afternoon  in 
Marion's  company,  en  t£te-a-t£te. 

Thereupon,  linking  her  arm  in  Voiture's,  Ninon 
begged  him  to  conduct  her  to  Number  6,  rue  des 
Tournelles.  The  poet,  vastly  enjoying  the  excite- 
ment his  words  had  evoked,  readily  complied,  and 
arrived  at  Marion's  apartments  where  the  Capitaine 
de  la  Rochefoucauld  was  duly  discovered.  Then 
broke  the  storm,  ending  in  Marsillac's  amazement 
when  Ninon  demanded  how  it  was  that  he  had  not 
discovered  in  her  his  old  friend  Ninon  de  L'Enclos. 
Then,  in  the  joy  and  delight  of  recognition,  Marsillac, 
forgetting  the  very  presence  of  her  rival,  sprang  to 
her  side,  and  offering  her  his  arm,  sallied  forth  back 
to  Ninon's  abode,  spending  the  rest  of  the  day  in 
recalling  old  times  at  Loches,  and  in  transports  of 
happiness.  Only  late  into  the  night,  long  after 
Marsillac  had  left  her  presence  and  she  was  lost  in 
dreamful  sleep,  it  brought  the  faces  of  her  mother 
and  of  St  Vincent  de  Paul  vividly  before  her,  gazing 
with  sad  reproachful  eyes ;  and  with  her  facile  pen 
she  recorded  the  memory  of  that  day,  fraught  with 
its  conflict  of  spirit  and  desire. 

."O  sweet  emotions  of  love!  blessed  fusion  of  souls! 
ineffable  joys  that  descend  upon  us  from  Heaven  !  Why 
is  it  that  you  are  united  to  the  troubles  of  the  senses,  and 
that  at  the  bottom  of  the  cup  of  such  delight  remorse  is 
found?" 

Whether  through  the  silence  of  the  small  hours 
any  echoes  touched  her  vivid  imagination  of  the 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  39 

Man  in  Black's  mocking  laughter,  no  record  tells ; 
but  in  any  case,  with  the  fading  of  the  visions,  the 
disturbing  reflections  were  quickly  lost  in  the  joy 
of  Marsillac's  society,  as  also  in  that  of  St  Evre*- 
mond — the  very  soul  of  gaiety  and  wit  and  every 
delightful  characteristic. 

"  How  happy  could  I  be  with  either, 
Were  t'other  dear  charmer  away," 

says  Captain  Mac  Heath,  and  there  were  days  to- 
gether that  Marsillac  did  absent  himself.  The 
grand  passion  of  his  life  was  not  with  either  of  the 
two  women,  or  with  any  of  the  fair  dames  then 
immediately  around.  They  were  merely  the  toys 
of  his  gallant  and  amiable  nature,  and  at  that  time 
he  was  deeply  absorbed  in  the  duties  of  his  pro- 
fession, and  his  ardent  devotion  to  the  queen's 
cause.  It  was,  indeed,  one  most  difficult  and 
dangerous,  ever  facing,  as  it  did,  the  opposition  of 
Richelieu,  who  saw  in  every  friend  and  partisan 
of  Anne  of  Austria  Spanish  aggression  and  a  foe 
to  France. 

Some  cause  there  surely  was.  Political  and 
religious  strife  raged  fast  and  hotly.  From  the 
outset — that  is,  at  least,  as  far  back  as  the  time 
when  the  Calvinists  banded  together  to  resist  the 
Catholics — it  was  not  a  question  alone  of  reform  or 
of  change  in  religious  conviction.  It  could  not  have 
remained  at  that :  the  whole  framework  of  govern- 
ment would  have  been  shaken  to  its  foundation  had 
the  Reformed  party  ultimately  triumphed ;  but  the 
passing  of  a  century  had  wrought  startling  changes. 


40  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

There  were  many  of  the  Catholic  nobility  whose 
policy  was  as  much  to  side  with  the  Huguenot 
party,  as  it  had  been  the  wisdom  of  the  Protestant 
Henri  IV.  to  adopt  the  Catholic  creed.  Richelieu, 
in  conquering  Rochelle,  showed  the  vanquished 
Huguenots  so  much  leniency,  that  public  clamour 
nicknamed  him  "the  Cardinal  of  Rochelle,"  and 
"the  Protestant  Pope,"  and  he  laughed,  and  said 
that  there  was  more  such  scandal  ahead  ;  since  he 
intended  to  achieve  a  marriage  between  the  king's 
sister,  Henrietta  Maria,  and  the  non  -  Roman 
Catholic  king,  Charles  I.  of  England. 

To  hedge  his  country  from  the  encroachment 
of  Spain  was  the  lifelong  aim  and  endeavour  of 
Richelieu,  and  he  was  ruthless  in  the  means.  The 
eastern  and  northern  frontiers  of  France  were 
constantly  menaced  and  invaded  by  Austria  and 
Spain  and  their  allies,  and  to  and  fro  to  Paris  came 
the  great  captains  and  soldiers  engaged  in  the 
constant  warfare  against  the  enemy — men  of  long 
lineage,  brave,  skilful  in  arms,  dauntless  in  action, 
and  certainly  no  laggards  in  love  when  opportunity 
afforded ;  and  they  returned  loaded  with  honour, 
covered  with  glory,  and  often  seriously  wounded, 
to  be  welcomed  and  made  much  of  in  the  salons  of 
noble  and  titled  women,  like  the  Duchesse  de 
Rambouillet,  and  other  reunions  scarcely  less  cele- 
brated and  brilliant,  where  the  fine  art  of  wit,  and 
the  culte  of  poetry  and  belles  lettres,  mingled  with  a 
vast  amount  of  love-making,  and  at  least  as  much 
exquisite  imitation  of  it,  were  assiduously  conducted. 
It  was  the  hall-mark  of  good  society,  a  virtue 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  41 

indispensable,  and  to  be  assumed  if  it  did  not  really 
exist,  and  too  greatly  valued  for  other  virtues  to 
be  set  great  store  by.  So  that  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  women  of  unimpeachable  repute,  and 
those  following  a  wider  primrose  path  grew  to  be 
so  very  thinly  defined  as  sometimes  to  be  invisible 
and  disregarded.  Notably  in  the  refined  and  elegant 
salon  of  Ninon  de  L'Enclos  were  to  be  counted  many 
ladies  of  distinction  and  modes  of  life  untouched 
by  the  faintest  breath  of  scandal,  who  loved  her 
and  sought  her  friendship,  as  there  were  men  who 
were  quite  content  to  worship  from  afar,  and  to  hold 
themselves  her  friends  pure  and  simple  to  life's 
end. 

Who  of  her  admirers  was  the  first  winner  of  the 
smiles  of  a  more  tender  intimacy,  is  not  more 
than  surmise,  remaining  recorded  only  in  invisible 
ink  in  a  lettre  de  cachet  whose  seal  is  intact. 
If  the  friend  of  her  early  girlhood  at  Loches 
is  indicated,  it  may  be  intentionally  misleading. 
Count  Coligny  was  an  acquaintance  at  whose 
coming  Ninon's  bright  eyes  acquired  yet  greater 
lustre,  and  de  la  Rouchefoucauld's  reappearance 
had  not  yet  taken  place — "  ce  cher  Marsillac"  whose 
devotion,  even  while  it  lasted,  was  tinctured  with 
divided  homage,  and  was  to  dissolve  altogether,  in 
the  way  of  love  sentiments,  in  the  sunshine  of  his 
deep  undying  attachment  to  Madame  de  Longue- 
ville.  There  was,  however,  no  rupture  in  this 
connection  ;  the  burden  of  the  old  song  was  simply 
reversed,  and  if  first  Marsillac  came  for  love,  it 
was  in  friendship  that  he  and  Ninon  parted,  giving 


42  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

place  to  the  adoration  of  St  Evr6mond — bonds 
which  were  never  broken,  and  whose  warm  senti- 
ments the  waters  of  the  English  Channel,  flowing 
between  for  forty  years,  could  not  efface.  The  effect 
might  have  been  even  the  contrary  one,  and  absence 
made  the  heart  grow  fonder,  though  the  tempera- 
ments of  Ninon  and  of  St  Evrdmond  were  un- 
doubtedly generously  free  of  any  petty  malignance 
and  small  jealousies. 

Monsieur  de  L'Enclos  had  survived  his  wife 
only  by  one  year.  He  died  of  a  wound  received 
in  an  encounter  arising  from  a  private  quarrel. 
Had  he  recovered,  it  would  probably  have  been  to 
lose  his  head  by  the  axe,  paying  the  penalty  of  the 
law  for  some  years  past  rigorously  enforced  against 
duelling.  The  scene  of  such  encounter  being  most 
frequently  the  open  space  of  the  Place  Royale,  the 
locality  of  the  cardinal's  own  house — as  it  was  of 
Ninon  and  of  Marion  Delorme — so  that  his  stern 
eyes  were  constantly  reminded  of  the  murderous 
conflicts.  The  law,  having  been  enacted  by 
Henri  IV.,  had  fallen  into  abeyance,  until  the 
specially  sanguinary  duel  between  the  Comte  de 
Bussy  and  the  Comte  de  Bouteville,  in '1622,  when 
de  Bouteville  mortally  wounded  de  Bussy,  and 
Richelieu  inflicted  the  penalty  of  decapitation  on 
de  Bouteville  and  on  Rosmadec  his  second,  as  he 
did  on  others  who  disobeyed ;  so  that  the  evil  was 
scotched  almost  to  stamping  out.  It  was  in  this 
fashion  that  Richelieu  made  his  power  felt  among 
the  nobility  and  wealthier  classes,  and  let  it  be 
understood  that  the  law  was  the  law  for  all. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  43 

Almost  immediately  following  on  the  death  of 
Monsieur  de  L'Enclos,  came  that  of  Ninon's  old 
nurse,  Madeleine — whose  kind  soul  and  devoted 
attachment  were  in  no  wise  ill-affected  by  the  small 
nips  of  can  de  vie  she  inclined  to — and  just  about 
the  same  time  died  Madame  de  Montaigu,  her  aunt 
at  Loches  ;  and  thus  within  six  months  she  had  lost 
the  few  of  her  nearest  and  dearest  from  childhood, 
and  she  felt  so  saddened  and  desolate  and  heart- 
broken, that  she  formed  the  resolution  of  giving  up 
the  world  and  being  a  nun  after  all — yearning  for 
the  consolation  which  religion  promises  of  reunion, 
and  a  fulness  of  sympathy  not  to  be  found  in 
ordinary  and  everyday  environments.  Scarcely  as 
yet  with  her  foot  on  womanhood's  bank  of  the 
river  of  life,  the  warm  kindly  nature  of  Ninon  was 
chilled  and  dulled  by  sorrow  and  regret ;  and  one 
evening,  at  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  in  her  ardent 
desire  to  find  some  peace  and  rest  of  spirit,  she 
entered  into  conversation  with  the  Pere  d'Orl^ans,  a 
renowned  Jesuit,  on  the  subject  of  religious  belief — 
but  his  best  eloquence  failed  in  convincing  her  of 
its  efficacy. 

The  right  of  private  judgment,  ever  one  of  her 
strongest  characteristics,  asserted  itself,  and  she 
declared  herself  unconvinced.  "  Then,  made- 
moiselle," said  the  ecclesiastic,  "  until  you  find 
conviction,  offer  Heaven  your  incredulity." 

But  while  words  failed,  her  heart  still  impelled 
her  to  the  idea  of  the  cloistered  life,  and  she  went 
to  seek  it  in  Lorraine,  at  a  convent  of  Recollettes 
sisters  near  Nancy.  There  were  many  houses  of 


44  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

this  Order  in  the  duchy.  The  one  sought  entrance 
to  by  Ninon,  was  under  the  patronage  of  St  Francis, 
and  she  was  received  with  effusion  by  the  Reverend 
Mother,  a  charming  lady,  herself  still  youthful. 
She  had  not,  however,  been  there  many  days, 
relegated  to  a  small  cell,  whose  diminutive  case- 
ment looked  upon  some  immediately-facing  houses, 
before  she  became  impressed  with  the  idea  that, 
great  as  the  desire  might  be  to  snatch  in  her  a 
brand  from  the  consuming  of  the  wicked  world,  it 
was  greater  still  for  the  little  fortune  she  was  known 
to  possess  ;  and  with  the  passing  of  time,  the  gentle 
assuager  of  more  poignant  grief,  she  was  beginning 
to  feel  less  attracted  towards  the  conventual  mode 
of  existence,  and  to  wonder  whether  she  really  had 
the  vocation  for  it.  Meantime,  the  old  spirit  of 
adventure  was  strongly  stirring  her  to  defer  the 
recital  of  a  formidable  list  of  Aves  and  penitential 
psalms,  in  favour  of  watching  a  window  facing  her 
loophole  of  a  lattice,  through  which  she  could  see  a 
man  busily  engaged  with  burin  and  etching  imple- 
ments. While  this  in  itself  was  not  uninteresting, 
the  interest  was  increased  tenfold,  when  she  con- 
trived to  discover  that  he  was  the  already  famous 
Jacques  Callot,  the  engraver ;  and  very  little  time 
was  lost  before  the  two  had  established  means 
of  communication  by  the  aid  of  a  long  pole,  to 
which  they  tied  their  manuscript  interchange  of 
messages  and  ideas — which  culminated  in  Ninon's 
descent  by  a  ladder  of  ropes  from  the  lattice,  and 
flight  from  the  convent. 

More  sober  chronicles  relate  of  Jacques  Callot, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  45 

that  through  all  the  curious  vicissitudes  and 
adventures  of  his  earlier  life,  he  remained  blameless 
and  of  uncorrupted  morality.  It  appears  certain 
that  his  real  inclination  was  ever  for  such  paths, 
and  the  romantic  love-affair  which  ended  in  his 
union  with  the  woman  he  adored,  was  calculated  to 
keep  him  in  them ;  in  which  case  the  attributed 
version  of  his  liaison  with  Ninon  must  be  accepted 
with  something  over  and  above  its  grain  of  salt, 
and  allowed  to  lie  by.  That  he  was  a  fearless,  high- 
minded  man,  as  well  as  a  great  artist,  stands  by  his 
honoured  name  in  a  golden  record ;  for  when  the 
imbroglio  occurred  between  Louis  XIII.  and  the 
Duke  of  Lorraine — in  which,  under  the  all-conquer- 
ing cardinal  prime-minister,  France  was  the  victor 
— Callot  was  commanded  to  commemorate  the  siege 
with  his  pencil — he  refused.  Callot  was  a  Lorrainer, 
and  the  duke  was  his  patron  and  liege-lord,  and 
Callot  refused  to  turn  traitor,  and  prostitute  his  gift 
by  recording  the  defeat  of  the  duke,  preferring  to 
run  the  very  close  chance  of  death  for  high  treason 
sooner  than  comply.  If,  as  it  is  asserted,  Ninon 
obtained  for  him  the  pardon  of  Richelieu,  by  virtue 
of  some  former  favour  or  service  she  had  done  the 
cardinal,  leaving  him  as  yet  in  her  debt  for  it,  all 
was  well  that  so  well  ended ;  and  it  adds  one  more 
to  the  list  of  Ninon's  generous  acts,  never  neglected 
where  she  had  the  power  to  perform  them  for  those 
she  loved. 

Whether  it  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  the  fascina- 
tion of  Ninon — so  absolutely  all-potent  as  she 
herself  claims  for  it — did  tempt  Callot  temporarily 


46  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

even  from  his  allegiance  to  the  love  of  the  woman 
he  won  under  such  romantic  circumstances,  it  is 
certain  that  she  mercifully  decided  to  leave  him  in 
tranquillity  with  his  wife  in  Lorraine,  returning  to 
Paris  in  company  with  a  little  contingent  of  her  old 
friends  and  admirers  who  had  been  engaged  in 
fighting  for  their  king  along  the  north-eastern 
borderlands.  Paris  was  so  rich  in  convents,  that 
the  question  irresistibly  suggests  itself  why  she 
should  have  travelled  that  hundred  or  so  of  miles 
to  Nancy  to  take  the  veil.  Possibly,  knowing  that 
Coligny,  Scarron,  Gondi,  de  la  Rochefoucauld, 
St  Evre"mond,  and  other  dons  camarades  were  all 
in  that  direction,  she  was  prompted  to  go  thither  to 
take  final  farewells  of  them  before  she  stepped 
over  the  threshold  masculine  foot  must  not  dese- 
crate ;  but  in  this  instance  it  was  the  propositions 
of  man  that  triumphed  in  the  face  of  every  spiritual 
consideration,  and  all  idea  of  the  contemplative 
life  was  flung  to  the  four  winds  in  the  delight  of 
the  old  companionships  and  renewal  of  ihejoze  de 
vivre.  The  reunion  was  celebrated  in  an  im- 
promptu feast,  of  reason  and  recherche"  dishes, 
and  flow  of  sparkling  wine,  and  unrestrained  merri- 
ment and  sallies  of  wit ;  for  where  Scarron  and 
St  Evre"mond  and  de  la  Rochefoucauld  were, 
wit  could  but  abound.  Next  day  they  all  started 
for  Paris,  transported  thither  by  matchlessly  swift- 
footed  post-horses,  Ninon  choosing  for  her  travelling 
companion  en  t£te-a-t£te,  Coligny ;  and  when  the 
two  arrived  at  rue  des  Tournelles,  they  did  not  part 
company ;  but  arranged  to  retire  to  the  rus  in  urbe 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  47 

of  her  Picpus  dwelling,  away  by  Charenton,  where 
they   established   manage  in  the  small  but  beauti- 
ful old  house,  once  the  dwelling  of  Henri  Quatre 
and  the  fair  Gabrielle,  with  one  maid-servant,  and 
one  man  servitor  Ninon   called  Perrote,  who  had 
been  the  faithful  valet  of  Monsieur  de  L'Enclos. 
Here     the     two    passed    an     idyllic    life,     where 
more    material    enjoyments    were    diversified    by 
intellectual   conversation,  sometimes   profane,    but 
more  often  taking  a  turn  so  far  sacred,  as  to  include 
the   points   of  doctrine  upon  which    Catholic  and 
Protestant  differed.     Coligny,  as  a  descendant   of 
the  great  murdered  Huguenot  leader,  was  a  Pro- 
testant ;  and  while  Richelieu  treated  the  Huguenots 
socially  with  indulgence,  he  would  not  tolerate  them 
as  a  political  party,  and  to  be  of  the  Reformed,  was 
utterly  to  lose  chance  of  advancement — and  Ninon 
was  ambitious  for  her  lover,  and  hence  the  religious 
discussions  and   her   endeavours   to  inoculate  him 
with  clear  conceptions  of  Catholic  teaching.  Coligny, 
however,  was  apt  to   show  signs   of  boredom   on 
these  occasions,  and  to  yawn  so  portentously,  that 
she  had  to  desist,  leaving  him  heretical  still,  when 
one   morning   the  Picpus   maisonette  was    invaded 
by   messengers   from    Richelieu,    accompanied   by 
halberdiers  from  the  Bastille,  who  demanded  the 
delivering  up  of  the  young  man's  sword,  and  bore 
him  off  a  prisoner  to   the  horrible  old  prison,  on 
the  charge  of  neglect  of  military  duty.     Once  again 
Ninon's  intercessions  with  Richelieu  procured  re- 
lease and  restoration  ;  but  Coligny  was  ungrateful 
and  jealous  of  the  red-robed  priest,  and  would-be 


48  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

galant  homme,  and  passing  away  from  Ninon's 
presence,  he  never  entered  it  again,  and  in  a  very 
few  weeks  was  married  to  the  sister  of  the  Due  de 
Luxembourg,  an  alliance  possibly  already  entered 
upon  at  an  earlier  date,  and  the  real  ground  of  his 
rupture  with  Ninon. 

She  soon  found  balm  for  the  inflicted  wounds  of 
Coligny's  ingratitude,  in  the  ardent  admiration  of 
the  son  of  the  Marquise  de  Rambouillet,  seeing 
in  him  only  the  one  absurd  defect  of  desiring  un- 
changing constancy,  and  on  this  point  he  was  so 
tiresome  that  she  was  driven  to  promise  fidelity  for 
three  months — "  An  eternity,"  said  Ninon,  ever 
mocking  at  love,  which  she  ranked  far  below 
friendship. 

The  greatest  apologist  of  the  society  of  the 
seventeenth  century  could  hardly  describe  it  as 
strait-laced  ;  except  by  comparison  with  the  first  half 
of  the  one  succeeding ;  and  if  some  of  the  grandes 
dames  of  the  circle  in  which  she  moved  held  aloof  and 
deprecated  theunconventionalities  of  Mademoiselle 
de  L'Enclos,  for  the  most  part  they  accepted  them, 
more  or  less  silently,  and  treated  her  with  cordiality, 
delighting  in  her  friendship,  and  fascinated  by  the 
elegance  and  dignity  with  which  she  conducted  the 
hospitalities  of  her  crowded  salons.  The  pre- 
vailing charm  of  one  graced  with  the  refinement  of 
no  surface  education,  and  accomplishments  never 
unduly  self-asserted,  shone  through  the  gentle  gaiety 
of  her  demeanour.  She  was  absolutely  innocent 
of  any  shadow  of  self-interest ;  taste  alone  guided 
her  inclinations,  her  competence  protected  her  from 


To  face  page  48. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  49 

greed,  and  natural  generosity  was  ever  prompting 
her  to  kindly  actions.  Once,  at  a  later  day,  when 
Anne  of  Austria  was  beginning  to  settle  into  the 
calm  austerities  of  maturer  years,  and  urged  by 
some  prudes  about  her,  she  sent  orders  for  the 
temporary  retirement  of  Ninon  into  a  convent, 
leaving  her  to  select  the  one  she  preferred — the 
tale  goes  that  she  expressed  her  gratitude  to  the 
exempt  of  the  guards  who  delivered  the  message, 
for  the  choice  so  left  her,  and  that  she  would  choose 
the  convent  of  the  Grands  Cordeliers,  an  establish- 
ment about  to  be  suppressed  for  the  scandals 
attaching  to  it ;  but  it  is  far  more  probable  that  the 
jest  originated  with  some  acquaintance ;  for  to 
make  light  of  orders  from  the  Court  was  in  no  wise 
according  with  Ninon's  code. 

That  command,  however,  again  reached  her  at 
a  yet  later  time,  and  then  was  enforced.  In  Louis 
XIII.'s  days,  Ninon  was  often  a  guest  at  the 
Louvre,  and  on  the  occasion  of  one  of  the  State 
balls  given  there,  she  was  present  with  Ram- 
bouillet  for  her  cavalier  in  chief.  As  she  was 
entering  her  carriage  to  return  home,  she  felt  a 
pull  at  her  mantle,  and  turning,  she  saw  beside 
her  "a  little  man,  clad  entirely  in  black  velvet, 
whose  smile  was  mocking  and  full  of  sarcasm, 
and  his  eyes  shone  like  carbuncles.  Rambouillet, 
seeing  my  terror,"  she  wrote  later,  "  demanded  of 
the  man  what  he  wanted ;  but  the  Man  in  Black 
silenced  him  with  an  imperious  gesture,  and  said 
to  me,  in  a  tone  of  profound  melancholy — *  You 
are  proud  of  your  beauty,  mademoiselle,  and 


50  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

you  are  right,  for  it  is  marvellous.  But  alas ! 
all  these  charms  will  one  day  fade.  The  rosy 
hues  of  your  skin  will  die  out,  age  will  come, 
and  bring  its  wrinkles.  Ah,  believe  me  !  Beware  ! 
Endeavour  to  hinder  this  misfortune,  for  after- 
wards there  will  be  nothing  left  to  you,'  So 
saying,  he  gravely  saluted  me,  and  disappeared 
among  the  arches  of  the  colonnade." x 
1  De  Mirecourt. 


CHAPTER   V 

An  Excursion  to  Gentilly — "  Urania  Sacrum " — Cesar  and 
Ruggieri — The  rue  d'Enfer  and  the  Capucins — Perditor — 
The  Love-philtre — Seeing  the  Devil — "  Now  You  are 
Mine ! " 

NINON'S  pledge  of  eternal  fidelity  to  Rambouillet 
did  not  hinder  other  friendships  ;  and  about  this  time 
she  one  day  made  an  excursion  to  Gentilly  with 
the  Comte  de  Lude,  intent  on  visiting  the  great 
magician,  Perditor,  who  conducted  there  his 
famous  incantations.  She  chose  de  Lude  for  her 
companion  on  this  occasion,  because  he  was  an 
utter  disbeliever.  The  adventure  was  prompted 
by  the  craze,  ever  latent  in  society,  and  then 
recently  kindled  to  fever-heat,  for  magic  and 
occultism.  The  theme,  as  old  almost  as  the  ages, 
is  ever  new,  and  likely  to  remain  so  until  the 
mysteries  of  life  and  death  are  revealed.  And  some 
short  time  previously,  the  rumour  had  circulated.that 
a  man  named  Febroni,  intensely  hated  by  Richelieu, 
was  endeavouring  to  compass  the  cardinal's  de- 
struction, by  causing  a  wax  image  of  him  to  be 
made  and  exposed  to  a  slow  fire,  and  as  the  image 
melted,  so  the  minister's  life  would  dwindle  to  the 
death.  This  was,  of  course,  no  new  device  of 
witchcraft  and  diablerie ;  but  it  served  to  arouse 
intense  interest  and  curiosity,  and  the  air  was  as 
full  of  sorcery  and  demonology  as  when  the  first 
Ruggieri  practised  his  arts  for  Catherine  de 

Si 


52  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

M^dicis,  and  watched  the  stars  from  the  old 
tower-top  of  Blois,  the  observatory  of  the  terrible 
queen,  "  Urania  Sacrum" 

Some  half-dozen  years  before  Ninon  was  born, 
a  man  named  Ce*sar  and  another  Ruggieri,  probably 
taking  the  old  magician  for  sponsor,  had  been 
notorious  as  potent  masters  of  the  "  Black  Art." 
That  they  were  credited  with  possessing  unlimited 
command  over  the  elements,  and  to  produce  thunder 
and  lightning  at  will,  was  but  a  small  part  of  his 
power.  He  could  manufacture  love-potions  to  render 
the  indifferent  one  enamoured  of  the  wooer,  and 
insidious  poisons  to  destroy  a  hated  human  obstacle, 
and  perform  many  services  of  the  like  nature  for 
a  price,  but  the  fees  were  startlingly  high. 

An  indiscretion,  only  in  a  measure  connected 
with  his  profession,  brought  C6sar  inside  the  walls 
of  the  Bastille.  He  had,  it  appeared,  been  accus- 
tomed to  attend  the  Witches'  Sabbath,  and  meeting 
there  a  great  Court  lady,  he  had,  he  said,  induced 
her  to  listen  too  graciously  to  his  soft  speeches. 
The  boasts,  after  his  release  from  the  old  fortress, 
brought  him  condign  punishment  at  the  hands,  it 
was  said,  of  his  Satanic  chief,  furious  with  jealousy 
it  might  be.  It  was  on  a  wild  March  night  that 
he  came  and  went  again  with  hideous  din  and 
clatter,  leaving  C£sar  strangled  in  his  bed  ;  and 
then  making  his  way  to  the  abode  of  Ruggieri,  he 
despatched  him  in  the  same  manner.  There  were 
some  ready  to  contend  that  less  supernatural  agency 
might  be  answerable  for  these  acts.  On  the 
other  hand  it  was  well  known  that  the  devil  was 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  53 

no  stranger  in  Paris,  having  once  resided  in  a 
street  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine,  which  was 
named  after  him,  the  rue  d'Enfer.  From  here 
he  was  at  last  ejected,  thanks  to  a  happy  thought 
on  the  part  of  the  city  authorities,  who  handed 
the  ground  over  to  the  Capucin  brothers,  and  the 
foul  fiend  was  heard  of  no  more  in  that  quarter. 
Ce"sar  extenuated  his  offence  of  magic  by  the  asser- 
tion that  he  "  was  pestered  to  death  by  young 
courtiers  and  other  young  Parisians  to  show  him 
the  devil,"  and  not  seeing  why  he  should  have  the 
trouble  of  doing  so  for  nothing,  he  set  his  price 
at  forty  and  fifty  pistoles,  leaving  it  a  matter  of 
choice  whether  they  would  face  the  terrible  ordeal 
to  its  ending,  or  take  flight,  leaving  the  pistoles  of 
course  behind  them.  It  was  this  latter  course 
which  had  been  mostly  adopted. 

And  now,  at  Gentilly,  dwelt  one  magician  named 
Perditor,  whose  power  was  reported  to  be  greater 
than  that  of  any  of  his  predecessors  ;  since  he 
possessed  the  secret  of  concocting  a  philtre  capable 
of  maintaining  a  woman's  beauty  and  freshness  to 
extreme  age.  It  was  the  idea  of  obtaining  this 
inestimable  thing,  which  determined  Ninon  to  pay 
a  visit  to  the  mighty  Perditor.  The  chronicles  of 
the  time  confirm  the  facts  related  by  Ninon  of  her 
adventure,  which  are  best  told  in  the  fashion  of 
her  own  experiences : 

"  On  entering  the  village,  we  inquired  for  the 
dwelling  of  the  celebrated  necromancer,  and  a 
guide  presented  himself  to  conduct  us  thither. 
We  soon  arrived  in  front  of  a  yawning  cavern 


54  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

which  was  surrounded  by  large  deep  ditches.  Our 
guide  made  a  signal,  and  immediately  a  man 
dressed  in  red  appeared  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  ditches,  and  asked  us  what  we  wanted. 

'"I  wish  for  a  philtre,'  I  replied,  'which  will 
make  my  beauty  last  the  length  of  my  life.' 

"  '  And  I,'  said  the  count,  '  wish  to  see  the  devil.' 

"  *  You  shall  both  be  satisfied,'  replied  the  red 
man,  as  calmly  as  if  we  had  asked  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world.  Then  he  lowered  a  sort  of 
drawbridge  across  the  ditch,  and,  this  crossed,  he 
admitted  us  into  the  cavern,  where  we  soon  found 
ourselves  in  complete  darkness.  I  felt  not  a  little 
nervous. 

"  '  Do  not  be  afraid,'  said  the  count  to  me ;  'I 
have  my  sword  with  me,  a  dagger,  and  two  pistols ; 
with  them  I  think  I  can  defy  all  the  sorcerers  in 
the  world.' 

"  After  proceeding  for  quite  five  minutes  along 
underground  galleries  and  passages,  we  found  our- 
selves in  a  sort  of  large  circular  chamber  hewn  out 
of  the  solid  rock.  Some  resin  torches  cast  a  fitful 
and  gloomy  glare  up  into  its  vaulted  roof.  At  one 
end  of  this  hall,  upon  a  platform  draped  entirely  in 
black,  was  seated  a  personage  in  the  garb  of  a 
magician,  who  appeared  to  be  waiting  for  us. 

"  *  That  is  the  Master  !  '  solemnly  said  the  man 
in  red  to  us. 

"And  he  left  us  alone  in  the  presence  of  the 
great  sorcerer  himself. 

"  '  Approach  ! '  cried  Perditor,  addressing  us  in  a 
terrible  voice.  '  What  do  you  wish  ? ' 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  55 

"  '  I  wish/  murmured  I,  in  a  trembling  voice,  'a 
philtre  to  preserve  to  me  my  youth  and  beauty  all 
my  life.' 

"  '  Forty  crowns.     Pay  first/ 

"  Taking  out  my  purse,  I  laid  down  five  louis, 
appalled  by  the  defiant  fierceness  of  his  tones. 
The  count  did  not  wait  for  the  questioning  of  the 
man  on  the  platform. 

"  '  For  my  part,  Sir  Necromancer/  he  said,  '  I 
feel  greatly  curious  to  see  the  devil.  How  much  do 
you  want  for  showing  him  to  me  ? ' 

"  'One  hundred  livres/ 

"'Peste!  At  that  price  what  fine  benefices 
you  must  be  able  to  bestow." 

"  The  lord  of  the  cavern  vouchsafed  no  reply. 
He  took  the  money  from  the  count,  which  he  put 
into  a  big  purse  hanging  at  his  side,  along  with  my 
louis.  That  done,  he  laid  his  hand  upon  a  huge 
bell,  which  sounded  as  loud  as  the  bourdon  strokes 
of  Notre-Dame  tower-bell.  At  this  signal,  which 
nearly  deafened  us,  two  nymph-like  young  women, 
fairly  pretty,  dressed  in  white  and  crowned  with 
flowers,  rose  from  the  ground  near.  Perditor 
pointed  me  out  to  them,  handed  them  an  empty 
crystal  phial,  and  then  again  struck  his  fearful  bell. 
The  nymphs  disappeared.  I  gathered  that  they 
had  gone  to  mix  my  philtre. 

"  '  And  now/  continued  the  necromancer,  turn- 
ing to  us,  '  you  are  both  decided  that  you  will  see 
the  devil?' 

"  'Very  decided/  said  the  count. 

"«  Your  name?' 


56  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"c  But  is  it  necessary  to  give  it  to  you,  sir?' 
stammered  I. 

" '  It  is  indispensable.1 

" «  It  is  Anne  de  L'Enclos.' 

"  *  And  I,1  hastened  to  add  my  companion,  '  I 
am  called  George  de  Sandrelles,  Comte  de  Lude.' 

"  '  You  swear  never  to  reveal  that  which  is  about 
to  take  place  before  your  eyes  ? ' 

"  'We  swear  it.' 

"  '  You  promise  not  to  be  afraid,  and  not  to  in- 
voke heaven  or  the  saints  ?  ' 

"  '  We  promise.' 

"The  magician  rose;  he  took  a  long  wand  of 
ebony,  approached  us,  and  traced  a  large  circle  with 
it  in  the  dust,  inscribed  with  a  number  of  cabalistic 
figures.  Then  he  said  to  us — 

"  c  You  can  still  go  away — are  you  afraid  ?  ' 

"  I  wanted  to  answer  in  the  affirmative,  but  the 
count  cried  in  resolute  tones — 

"  '  Afraid  of  the  devil  ?  For  shame  !  What  do 
you  take  us  for  ?  Get  on  with  you.' 

11  And  at  the  same  instant  we  heard  thunderous 
peals — the  voice  of  the  magician  sounding  above 
the  tumult.  He  gesticulated,  shouted,  and  broke, 
in  some  unknown  tongue,  into  a  torrent  of  diabolic 
invocations.  It  made  one's  hair  stand  on  end. 
Terror  seized  me.  I  clung  convulsively  to  the 
count's  arm,  and  implored  him  to  leave  the  frightful 
place. 

" '  The  time  is  past  for  it,'  cried  the  sorcerer; 
*  do  not  cross  the  circle,  or  you  are  dead.' 

"Suddenly,  to  the  noise  of  the  thunder,  succeeded 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  57 

a  sound  like  the  rattling  of  chains  that  were  being 
dragged  along  the  depths  of  the  cavern.  Then  we 
heard  dismal  bowlings.  The  necromancer's  con- 
tortions continued,  and  his  cries  redoubled.  He 
uttered  barbaric  words,  and  appeared  to  be  in  fits 
of  frenzy.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  we  were 
enveloped  in  flames. 

"'Look!1  cried  Perditor. 

"  A  cry  of  terror  broke  from  me,  as  I  saw  in  the 
midst  of  this  wild  whirlwind  of  fire  a  huge  black 
goat,  loaded  with  glowing  red  chains.  The  howl- 
ings  grew  more  fearful,  the  flames  burst  into  fright- 
ful intensity,  and  a  troop  of  hideous  demons,  also 
loaded  with  chains,  began  to  dance  round  the  goat, 
waving  their  torches,  and  uttering  furious  shouts 
and  yells.  The  goat  reared  on  to  his  hind  legs, 
butted  with  his  horns,  and  appeared  to  be  the  very 
genius  of  the  infernal  scene. 

"  '  Ah  !  pardieu  ! '  cried  de  Lude,  '  the  comedy 
is  well  played,  I  own ;  but  I  am  curious  to  see  the 
coulisses,  and  to  examine  the  costumes  of  the 
actors  closer.' 

"  He  grasped  his  pistols,  and  made  as  if  he  was 
going  to  step  over  the  circle ;  but  at  a  sign  from 
the  magician,  all  the  flames  were  extinguished,  the 
goat  and  the  demons  disappeared.  We  were 
plunged  once  more  into  profound  darkness.  At  the 
same  moment  strong  arms  seized  us,  we  were 
dragged  hurriedly  along  the  passages,  and  flung 
outside  the  cavern. 

"  I  was  only  too  glad  of  this  unlooked-for  ending 
up,  and  did  not  ask  to  go  back  and  get  my  philtre, 


58  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

and  I  willingly  left  the  magician  in  possession  of 
my  five  louis. 

"  The  count  was  not  at  all  of  the  same  mind. 
He  insisted  on  penetrating  to  the  solving  of  the 
enigma.  We  had  been  the  victims  of  a  hateful  and 
odious  charlatanism.  I  did  not  feel  so  convinced 
of  that  as  he  was,  and  the  abominable  spectacle 
would  not  quit  my  imagination.  For  the  rest  of 
that  day,  and  the  following  night,  I  saw  nothing 
but  devils  dancing  and  howling  amid  the  flames." 

And  then  it  was  just  before  break  of  dawn, 
between  her  sleeping  and  waking,  came  once  again 
the  Man  in  Black.  He  smilingly  asserted  himself  to 
Ninon,  to  be,  beyond  all  doubt  and  juggling  hocus- 
pocus,  his  Satanic  Majesty,  the  real  "  Simon  Pure." 
In  calm,  grave  tones  he  offered  her  the  choice  of  the 
three  great  gifts  this  world  has  to  bestow — riches, 
grandeur,  beauty — enduring  beauty  till  all-destroying 
Death  should  claim  her,  and  with  only  a  momentary 
hesitation,  Ninon  chose  beauty.  Then  in  two 
crystal  phials,  like  the  one  the  charlatans  had  yester- 
day cheated  her  out  of  in  the  Gentilly  cavern,  he 
handed  her  the  wondrous  liquid — limpid,  delicately 
rose-tinted  ;  enough  to  last  the  longest  lifetime, 
since  one  drop  only  in  a  wine-glass  of  water,  to  be 
taken  after  her  morning  bath,  was  all  that  was 
needed.  First,  however,  he  produced  his  tablets, 
and  writing  a  few  words  on  one  of  the  pages,  he 
bade  her  set  her  signature  beneath.  "  Very  good," 
he  said,  when  she  had  done  this.  As  he  placed  the 
phials  in  her  hands,  "  Now  you  are  mine,"  and  he 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  59 

added,  as  he  laid  his  hand  on  her  shoulder,  that  her 
health  would  remain  almost  unbroken  through  all 
the  coming  years,  troops  of  friends  and  love  would 
be  ever  with  her,  and  after  death  the  memory  of 
her  would  be  unfading.  Once  more  she  would  see 
him — years  hence.  "Then  beware  and  tremble; 
you  will  not  have  three  more  days  to  live." 

And  so  he  disappeared.1 

In  the  course  of  their  brief  conversation,  the 
Man  in  Black  disclosed  to  Ninon  the  manner  in 
which  his  impudent  imitator  produced  his  Mumbo- 
Jumbo  terrors.  Like  the  Comte  de  Lude,  he  did  not 
deny  them  effect ;  but  he  held  them  so  essentially 
vulgar,  that  it  seemed  marvellous  to  him  how 
the  fellow  succeeded  in  imposing  on  refined  and 
educated  clients.  Moreover,  they  had  not  even 
the  recommendation  of  novelty.  Perditor  had,  he 
explained,  contrived  merely  to  get  knowledge  and 
possession  of  the  tricks  and  traps  of  the  long  since 
strangled  Cesar,  who  during  his  incarceration  in 
the  Bastille  had  entertained  his  gaolers  with  an 
account  of  the  way  he  played  his  tricks,  performed 
apparently  at  Gentilly  also  at  that  time  and  there- 
fore rendering  the  way  the  easier  to  his  successor, 
since  the  old  quarry  he  had  utilised  and  patterned 
about  with  ditches  still  remained.  Perditor's 
ceremonial  was  identically  the  same  with  Cesar's. 
The  frightful  cries  he  uttered  were  the  signal  for 
six  men  hideously  masked  and  garbed,  he  kept 
concealed  in  the  cavern,  to  spring  forward,  flinging 
out  flashes  of  flame,  and  waving  torches  of  burning 
1  De  Mirecourt. 


60  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

resin.  Amid  the  flames  was  to  be  seen  the 
monstrous  goat,  loaded  with  thick  iron  chains 
painted  vermilion,  to  give  the  appearance  of  being 
red-hot.  On  each  side,  in  the  obscurity  of  the 
cavern,  were  placed  two  huge  mastiffs,  their 
heads  fastened  into  wooden  cases,  wide  at  one  end, 
and  narrow  at  the  other.  Two  men  goaded  and 
prodded  these  two  poor  animals,  which  caused  them 
to  utter  the  most  dismal  howling,  filling  the  cavern 
with  the  appalling  noise,  while  the  goat,  a  most 
intelligent  beast,  and  thoroughly  understanding  his 
part,  played  it  to  admiration,  rattling  his  chains  and 
butting  his  huge  horns. 

The  devil  having  thus  shown  himself,  two  of 
the  men  now  rush  upon  the  unfortunate  individual, 
and  belabour  him  black  and  blue  with  long  bags  of 
cloth  filled  full  of  sand,  and  then  fling  him,  half-dead, 
outside  the  cavern.  "  Then  the  parting  advice  is 
given  him  not  to  wish  to  see  the  devil  again,  and 
he  never  does,  concluded  Cdsar." 


CHAPTER  VI 

Nemesis — Ninon's  Theories — Wits  and  Beaux  of  the  Salons — 
Found  at  Last — "The  Smart  Set" — A  Domestic  Menage 
— Scarron — The  Fatal  Carnival — The  Bond  of  Ninon — 
Corneille  and  The  Cid — The  Cardinal's  Jealousy — Enlarging 
the  Borders — Monsieur  1'Abbe  and  the  Capon  Leg — The 
Grey  Cardinal— A  Faithful  Servant. 

NINON'S  intrigue  with  the  young  Marquis  de 
Rambouillet  gave  great  offence  to  Madame  de 
Rambouillet.  It  sheds  a  curious  light  on  the 
manner  of  the  great  world  of  the  time,  that  the 
doors  of  the  marquise's  house  remained  still  open 
to  her,  yet  so  they  did  remain.  The  justly 
incensed  lady  contented  herself  with  soliciting 
an  order  from  the  Court  for  the  young  man  to 
rejoin  his  regiment  in  Auvergne  without  delay  ;  and 
Ninon  was  left  to  console  herself  elsewhere,  and  to 
avenge  as  she  might  her  annoyance  at  the  epigrams 
showered  upon  her,  not  to  speak  of  the  severe  blame 
cast  upon  women  of  society  who  were  undeterred  by 
any  sense  of  propriety  and  the  convenable — which 
she  was  well  aware  was  mainly  levelled  at  herself. 
All  moral  considerations  aside,  the  breach  of  good 
taste  is  inconceivable  in  one  who  so  prided  herself, 
and  generally  with  justice,  on  the  observation  of 
the  general  laws  governing  the  people  of  her  class. 
The  hospitality  of  the  famous  mansion  in  the  rue 
St  Thomas  du  Louvre,  however,  was  still  accorded 
her,  and  if  it  was  more  chilly  than  formerly,  Ninon 

61 


62  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

consoled  herself  by  enlisting  many  who  frequented 
the  brilliant  gatherings,  on  the  side  of  her  easy- 
going philosophy,  and  discussing  its  tenets  with 
amazing  frankness. 

The  women  were  not  many  who  upheld  her  argu- 
ments ;  but  the  men  vastly  applauded  and  seconded 
her  sallies  against  the  theory  of  Platonic  love.  In 
her  opinion,  it  was  an  impossible  doctrine,  and  on 
such  themes  she  was  Madame  Oracle,  and  her 
beautiful  mouth  opened  to  expound,  what  dog 
dare  bark?  Unless  indeed  it  might  be  the 
cardinal.  "Mademoiselle,"  he  said,  one  evening 
when  he  was  present,  as  he  frequently  was,  in  the 
Rambouillet  salon,  and  Ninon  ventured  an  obser- 
vation not  quite  to  his  taste,  "  I  never  accept 
lessons,  even  when  they  issue  from  such  pretty  lips 
as  yours." 

The  stately  mansion  of  Rambouillet,  with  its 
magnificent  grand  salon,  and  blue  chamber,  the 
special  haunt  of  the  poets,  its  daintily  furnished 
smaller  chambers,  and  richly-draped  alcoves  and  cosy 
corners,  was  only  one  among  many  houses  enter- 
taining the  society  of  the  world  which  was  devoted, 
or  assumed  devotion,  to  art  and  literature.  There 
were  the  Saturdays  of  Madame  de  Sable*,  and  not- 
ably also  the  receptions  of  Mademoiselle  Scuderi. 
Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos'  own  apartments  were 
thronged  on  her  reception  nights  with  the  company 
of  talented  and  famous  men  and  women,  though 
that  genial  admirer  of  hers,  St  Evrdmond,  once  had 
the  temerity  to  criticise  the  beauty,  or  the  lack 
of  it,  in  the  ladies  of  the  cot&rie.  It  might,  of 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  63 

course,as  he  said,  arise  from  mere  chance ;  but  other- 
wise it  was  a  mistake ;  since  it  suggested  the  idea 
that  Ninon  could  not  sufficiently  prize  her  own 
beauty  ;  and  on  the  score  of  the  hidden  compliment 
the  audacity  was  condoned.  After  the  coolness 
that  followed  upon  Ninon's  liaison  with  the  Marquis 
de  Rambouillet,  the  society  of  the  salon  of  the 
marquise  somewhat  thinned  for  awhile  ;  while  the 
salon  of  the  rue  des  Tournelles  was  more  thronged 
than  ever.  The  cachet  that  admitted  to  all  these 
various  assemblies  would  appear  to  have  been  that 
only  of  fair  breeding  and  connexions,  and  some 
intellectual  pretension,  though  the  supply  of  that 
was  not  necessarily  very  great,  since  the  leaven 
of  would-be  wits  and  of  absolute  stupidity — the 
4 'mostly  fools"  Carlyle  says  the  world  is  peopled 
with — would  seem  to  have  been  even  curiously 
large.  One  and  all,  however,  were  full  of  ambition 
to  air  the  rhymes,  and  often  senseless  epigrams  and 
dreary  sonnets  and  conceits,  generated  in  their 
miserable  brains. 

Perhaps  the  only  one  of  this  crowd  of  triflers 
who  is  worth  recording  is  the  Baron  de  Miranges. 
In  addition  to  the  fact  that  he  was  never  known  to 
sit  still  two  consecutive  minutes,  he  was  supremely 
ugly ;  marked  with  the  smallpox,  he  squinted,  his 
chin  was  awry,  his  nose  twisted  to  one  side.  He 
was  the  first  to  jest  at  all  these  defects.  One  day 
he  met  a  man  on  the  Pont  Neuf,  an  entire  stranger 
to  him,  and  halting  before  him,  Miranges,  in  a  sort 
of  transport  of  satisfaction,  gave  a  joyous  cry  and 
threw  himself  upon  the  individual's  neck,  saying: 


64  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  Oh,  sir !  how  charmed  I  am  at  this  meeting,  and 
for  what  a  number  of  years  I  have  been  looking  for 
you ! " 

"  Indeed  ?  "  said  the  other,  in  a  tone  of  astonish- 
ment. "  I  do  not  think  I  have  the  honour  of  know- 
ing you." 

"  No.  Unluckily  I  have  met  you  much  too 
late  ;  but  I  look  at  you,  I  contemplate  you,  and  I 
am  happy." 

"But  why?" 

"Yes,  yes,  indeed,"  replied  Monsieur  de 
Miranges  ;  "let  us  embrace  each  other  again.  I 
have  always  despaired  of  ever  finding  a  man  uglier 
than  myself,  but  now — yes,  you  are  that  man." 

Not  without  justice,  Ninon,  who  about  this  time 
had  in  more  ways  than  one  drawn  unfavourable 
public  criticism  upon  herself,  complains  that  she 
was  really  less  culpable,  infinitely  more  decorously 
behaved  in  society,  than  many  of  the  titled  and 
fashionable  dames,  whose  behaviour,  scandalous  as 
it  was,  passed  unchallenged.  They  were  constantly 
promenading  in  the  Place  Royale,  chattering  at 
the  top  of  their  voices,  ogling,  smoking,  taking 
snuff,  adorning  their  mantles  and  hats  with  knots  of 
ribbon  of  various  colours,  each  conveying  a  different 
significance,  and  generally  comporting  themselves 
after  the  manner  of  the  lowest  of  their  sex.  Ninon 
de  L'Enclos  had  made  a  law  unto  herself,  a  law  of 
liberty,  and  she  made  no  pretence  of  not  abiding  by 
it ;  but  she  rarely  sinned  in  outward  decorum, or 
forgot  the  good  breeding  of  her  station. 

In  the  matter  of  de  Rambouillet,  if  she  did  not 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  65 

acknowledge  the  false  step,  it  was  probable  she  was 
made  to  feel  conscious  of  it,  and  decided  soon  after 
to  divert  public  attention  to  some  other  topics  of 
scandal,  by  absenting  herself  from  Paris  for  a 
while  and  rusticating  at  Loches,  the  estate  which 
her  aunt  had  left  her.  On  reaching  le  Mans,  she 
was  met  by  the  Marquis  de  la  Chatre — an  amiable 
man  for  whom  Ninon  had  sufficient  attachment  and 
constancy*  to  allow  the  good  provincials  to  imagine 
they  were  man  and  wife,  and  the  two  were  widely 
welcomed  and  courted. 

One  evening,  at  a  supper  party  to  which  they 
were  invited,  she  met  Scarron.  He  arrived  in 
company  with  some  canons  from  the  cathedral,  and 
to  her  great  surprise  she  learned  from  him  that 
he  now  held  a  canonry  in  le  Mans  cathedral, 
bestowed  upon  him  for  the  assistance  of  his  pen, 
than  which  few  were  more  able  than  his  in  Lorraine, 
in  drawing  up  a  history  of  the  duchy  of  Lorraine. 

To  Paul  Scarron,  the  brilliant  wit,  comic  poet, 
rhymester — so  admired  of  another  erratic  genius, 
Oliver  Goldsmith,  who  translated  his  Roman  Com- 
ique — the  sunny-natured,  in  earlier  years  scanda- 
lously debauched,  and  always  don  mvant — brimming 
with  the  overflow  of  humour  that  wells  from  the 
depths  of  a  sympathetic  temperament — generous, 
kind-hearted — to : 

"  Nothing  extenuate, 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice," 

are  words  hardly  to  be  more  aptly  applied.  The 
sufferings  of  his  childhood,  due  to  the  avarice  of 
his  artful  stepmother,  who  contrived  to  separate 


66  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

him  from  his  father  and  get  possession  of  his 
fortune,  cast  him  nearly  penniless  upon  the  world, 
when  scarcely  more  than  a  child.  It  was  one  more 
instance  of  the  game,  ever  new,  which  relatives 
intellectually  inferior,  incited  by  envy  and  greed, 
love  to  play  upon  the  unfortunate  talented  one,  and 
render  life  one  long  misery  and  struggle  at  the  best, 
provided  sufficient  bread  is  somehow  come  upon  to 
retain  breath.  So  much  the  brave  heart  and  exer- 
cise of  his  gifts  enabled  the  lad  to  acquire,  and  he 
managed  to  enter  ecclesiastical  ranks  ;  but  only  to 
the  outermost  degree — not,  it  may  be,  aspiring  to  the 
priesthood,  which  hardly  could  have  lost  anything 
from  one  whose  character  and  mode  of  life  were 
so  glaringly  ill  adapted  for  the  calling.  Scarron's 
vocation  that  way  was  worse  than  nil ;  nevertheless, 
in  that  lax  time  of  ecclesiastical  law  and  order,  he 
obtained  the  canonry  of  le  Mans  cathedral,  and  thus 
dignified,  Monsieur  1'Abbe*  Scarron  met  Ninon  again 
at  the  supper-table  of  the  local  receiver-general 
of  taxes,  and  was  more  ready  than  ever  for  any 
lengths  of  wild  uproariousness  the  chance  brought 
him.  It  came  just  then  with  the  Carnival,  and 
Scarron,  with  one  or  two  companions,  conceived 
the  notion  of  spreading  a  big  mattress  all  over  with 
goose's  feathers  and  down  ;  then,  smearing  them- 
selves from  head  to  foot  in  honey,  they  rolled  upon 
the  mattress  until  they  were  encased  in  the  feathers 
so  thickly,  that  the  disguise  was  impenetrable,  and 
they  looked  like  some  hideous  monstrosities  of  the 
bird-tribe,  face  and  all  covered  in  the  plumage. 
Passing  up  the  street,  followed  by  a  huge  concourse, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  67 

they  made  their  way  to  Ninon's  chateau,  and  forced 
entrance,  greatly  to  the  anger  of  Monsieur  de  la 
Chatre,  who  quickly  discovered  who  they  were,  and 
at  once  denounced  them.  The  mob,  furious  at  the 
thought  of  a  churchman  of  their  own  cathedral  in- 
dulging in  such  wild  licence,  set  upon  the  feathered 
monsters,  and  flinging  them  down,  pommelled  and 
beat  the  unprotected  bodies  of  the  unfortunate  mas- 
queraders,  and  plucked  off  every  feather,  pursuing 
them  without  mercy,  until  they  were  compelled  to 
jump  into  the  rushes  of  the  river  forprotection.  There 
they  were  forced  to  remain  for  hours,  and  two  of 
Scarron's  three  companions  died  from  the  effects  of 
the  cold  immersion,  and  the  violence  dealt  them. 
Scarron  himself  escaped  with  breath,  but  little 
more.  The  chill  and  exposure  brought  on  an 
illness  from  which  he  never  recovered.  It  crippled 
him  in  every  limb,  and  rendered  him,  as  he  himself 
says,  an  abridgment  of  human  suffering — tied  to 
his  chair  by  the  contraction  of  every  muscle,  in 
never-ending  pain  for  all  the  years  to  come  ;  yet 
never  losing  his  gaiety,  and  for  all  the  misery  he 
had  created  for  himself,  winning  the  pity  and  the 
money  gifts  from  the  Court  and  from  wealthy 
friends  which  enabled  him  to  live  in  fair  affluence. 
A  short  time  later  the  domestic  felicity  being 
enjoyed  at  the  Loches  chateau  by  Ninon  and 
Monsieur  de  la  Chatre  was  rudely  broken  up  by  a 
summons  from  Monsieur  de  la  Chatre's  family,  at 
Besangon,  to  repair  to  the  deathbed  of  his  father. 
The  two  parted  with  real  regret,  and  so  much 
devotion  on  the  Marquis  de  la  Chatre's  side,  that 


68  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

nothing  would  content  him  short  of  a  written  and 
signed  promise  from  Ninon  of  eternal  fidelity  to 
him.  She  accordingly  wrote  on  a  leaf  of  his 
tablets  these  words — 

"I  swear  to  love  you  always. — NINON." 

Carefully  bestowing  this  precious  bond  in  black 
and  white  in  an  innermost  pocket  of  his  vest,  de  la 
Chatre  conducted  Ninon  back  to  Paris.  He  would 
have  preferred  to  leave  her  in  Touraine,  to  pass 
the  time  of  his  absence  in  the  rural  tranquillity  of 
her  beautiful  little  domain ;  but  if  Ninon  desired 
to  ruralise,  was  there  not  her  charming  country 
residence  at  Picpus  ? — and  Picpus  is  much  nearer 
Paris  than  Loches  ;  and  just  then  the  Mare*chal  de 
Se'vigne'  had  arrived  in  Paris,  a  man  of  noble 
presence,  distinguished  for  his  recent  successes  in 
the  king's  service,  and  the  young  Vicomte  de 
Turenne,  already  entered  upon  the  paths  of  his 
renown,  by  his  splendid  service  in  Lorraine  and 
Italy,  and  both,  eagerly  seeking  introduction  to 
Ninon,  came,  saw,  and  were  conquered  by  her 
charm. 

De  Se*  vigne*'s  rendered  homage  was,  however,  on 
somewhat  unconventional  lines,  the  honeyed  words 
of  his  admiration  being  tempered  with  just  enough 
fault-finding  as  to  render  it  unusually  piquant  ; 
but  Ninon's  favours,  and  just  now  especially,  were 
in  no  wise  exclusively  bestowed  on  the  heroes  of  the 
battlefield.  She  was  no  more  prtcieuse  than  she 
was  Platonifienne ;  but  she  was  genuinely  gifted 
with  a  love  of  letters,  which  had  been  fostered  by 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  69 

the  excellent  education  her  father  had  given  her, 
and  she  entered  ardently  into  the  great  intellectual 
movement  of  the  time,  in  which  the  drama 
figured  so  prominently.  Richelieu  himself  was  so 
warm  a  devotee,  that  his  ambition  to  excel  as  a 
dramatist  equalled,  if  it  did  not  surpass,  his  political 
ambition  ;  and  while  jealous  to  the  mean  extent  envy 
can  reach,  he  did  not  withhold  his  patronage  from  the 
great  genius  of  him  who  has  been  styled  the  father 
of  the  French  dramatists,  Pierre  Corneille.  Even 
had  Richelieu  not  desired  as  he  did,  to  make  use 
of  the  brilliant  talent  of  Corneille  for  his  own  ends, 
it  would  not  have  been  possible  for  him  to  hold 
aloof  amid  the  enthusiasm  of  the  world  of  letters, 
and  of  society  generally,  which  hailed  in  1636  the 
production  of  The  Cid. 

As  every  time  "  doth  boast  itself  above  better 
gone,"  so  must  Corneille's  name  yield  place  in  a 
degree  to  what  has  since  been  seen.  Still,  ever  re- 
membering his  fathering  of  it — for  his  predecessors 
in  dramatic  work  worthy  of  any  name  were  dull 
and  lacked  artistic  knowledge  of  their  craft,  and 
Godelet,  Gamier,  and  others  are  but  names  now 
and  no  more  —  Corneille's  masterpiece  would 
challenge  criticism  in  plenty  now,  placed  before  the 
delicate  discrimination  of  the  daily  press  of  this  time, 
or  the  judgment  of  the  gallery,  alike  in  his  native 
country  or  elsewhere.  It  is  but  recently  that  the 
tragedy  of  a  great  French  poet,  not  yet  two  genera- 
tions passed  away,  revived  at  the  Comddie 
Franchise,  though  reverently  and  finely  acted,  was 
derided  and  mocked  at  without  mercy  behind  the 


70  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

scenes  by  those  taking  part  in  it.  Exactly  what 
will  be  the  opinions  of  critics  of  future  generations 
on  the  dramatic  productions  of  the  early  years  of 
the  twentieth  century,  fortunately  the  means  will 
probably  be  lacking  to  know ;  the  fact  remains  that 
the  fame  of  Pierre  Corneille  is  a  living  force  and  a 
memory  for  all  time. 

It  was  the  fashion  of  that  day  to  model  plays 
and  novels  on  Spanish  and  Italian  patterns;  and 
advised  to  follow  this  ruling,  Corneille  selected  the 
subject  of  The  Cid—  Rodriguez — on  which  to  base 
a  drama,  not  his  first  by  several ;  but  while  the  pre- 
ceding ones  were  held  in  great  esteem,  The  Cid 
was  regarded  as  attaining  to  the  highest  excellence, 
and  its  fame  as  his  crowning  work  has  ever  re- 
mained by  it.  Some  of  his  dramas  of  a  later  date 
were  unsuccessful ;  one  of  his  comedies,  Le  Menteur 
— the  only  one  which  had  popularity — is  best 
known  in  this  country  by  Steele's  translation  of  it, 
The  Lying  Lover. 

Richelieu,  stirred  to  dramatic  ambition — finding 
probably  that  it  was  an  art  less  easy  than  it  seemed 
— sought  the  assistance  of  five  dramatists  to  write  up 
and  give  more  effect  to  his  tragedies  ;  at  least  any 
other  reason  for  such  collaboration  is  not  easy  to  be 
imagined.  One  of  the  five  chosen  was  Corneille,  who, 
naturally  somewhat  curt  and  abrupt  in  speech,  did 
not  spare  to  find  fault  with  some  of  the  details  of  the 
cardinal's  work,  and  the  concatenation  of  The  Cid's 
success  and  of  Corneille's  frankness  over  Euterpe  and 
Mirame,  stirred  such  offence  in  the  cardinal's  jealous 
mind,  that  he  endeavoured  to  drive  a  spoke  in  the 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  71 

wheel  of  Corneille's  car  of  triumph  ;  and  one  of  the 
earliest  achievements  of  the  recently  constituted 
Academic  Franchise  was  a  critique  on  The  Cid 
commanded  of  its  members  by  its  founder.  It  had 
no  effect  at  all  in  lessening  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
world  of  letters,  or  of  the  general  public  for  the  drama. 
The  poison  did  not  act,  in  spite  of  the  endeavours 
of  several  of  the  poetasters  to  second  the  pronounce- 
ments. One  defect,  that  it  was  not  original  in 
plot  and  construction,  but  based  on  a  Spanish 
dramatic  model,  was  to  be  conceded  ;  if  defect 
that  was  which  at  the  time  was  held  to  be 
almost  indispensable  in  a  play.  There  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun.  Shakespeare's  comedies  and 
tragedies  alike — the  English  historical  plays  ex- 
cepted — are  one  and  all  based  on  old  legends 
and  classic  stories  which  he  drew  from  Italian,  and 
Spanish  and  French,  and  other  sources  that  had,  in 
their  turn,  sprung  from  tradition  no  longer  trace- 
able, hidden  in  origins  lost  in  the  lapse  of  centuries. 
Richelieu's  own  dramatic  effusions  were  reproduc- 
tions of  classical  themes.  It  was  the  grandeur  of 
the  verse  of  Corneille,  its  lofty  thought,  its  dignity 
and  moral  conception,  its  depicting  of  conflicting 
passions — this  it  was  that  won  the  admiration,  and 
struck  home  to  heartfelt  sympathies,  in  its  power  of 
presenting  character,  under  other  names,  of  living 
men  and  women,  the  contemporaries  of  Ninon's  time, 
contending,  suffering,  striving  in  the  stormy  politi- 
cal atmosphere,  darkening  in  now  with  the  shadows 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

In  the  delight  of  Corneille's  presence  in  Paris, 


72  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Ninon  sacrificed  all  the  ordinary  routine  of  her 
life.  It  was  in  her  salon,  if  the  chronicling  of  the 
fact  is  to  be  trusted,  that  Corneille  read  to  the 
assembled  company  his  manuscript  of  The  Cid,  all 
the  principal  members  being  present  of  the  Hotel 
Bourgogne,  and  the  few  other  talented  "rogues 
and  vagabonds  "  proscribed  of  the  Church,  though 
ill  to  be  spared  by  it,  if  the  cardinal's  plays  were 
to  have  any  sort  of  success.  The  Comddie 
Frangaise  was  yet  an  institution  of  the  future  ;  and 
the  stage  of  the  Hotel  Bourgogne,  with  the  two 
or  three  other  theatres  were  not  much  more 
than  glorified  fair  platforms,  while  the  theatre 
in  the  rue  Gudnegaud  ordinarily  confined  itself 
to  the  presentment  of  Chinese  shadows.  The 
drawing-room  of  the  Louvre  and  of  the  Palais 
Cardinal  were  utilised  for  masques  and  such  plays 
as  there  were,  called  in  request  for  the  Court  and 
the  more  exalted  circles  of  society.  Richelieu's  own 
pieces  were  thus  performed.  The  drama  was  in  tran- 
sition. It  was  a  far  cry  now  from  Clement  Marot 
and  the  antics  of  the  clerks  of  the  Basoche  upon 
the  huge  marble  table  of  the  Hall  of  Lost  Foot- 
steps, to  the  Acade'mie  Fran9aise  and  the  Hotel 
de  Rambouillet ;  and  the  language  of  the  country 
was  undergoing  changes,  even  as  the  aspect  of  the 
city  itself  was  no  longer  that  of  a  few  years  earlier, 
when  Ninon  first  came  to  Paris.  Then  Notre- 
Dame  was  nearly  surrounded  by  green  spaces  of 
meadowland  and  field  and  hedgerow,  stretching 
between  the  streets  and  the  grassy  banks  of  the 
Isle  de  la  Cite".  Now  here,  and  away  to  the  Palais 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  73 

de  Justice ;  and  northwards  of  the  Louvre,  streets 
were  gathering,  and  houses  began  to  crowd  about 
the  old  towers  of  the  Concie'rgerie  ;  while  on  the 
banks  of  the  Seine,  right  and  left,  the  old  walls 
of  Philip  Augustus  were  laid  low  or  broken  up  to 
afford  room  for  new  buildings.  Behind  the  Louvre, 
far  extending  to  the  gardens  and  palace  of  the 
Tuileries,  Richelieu's  magnificent  residence  domin- 
ated the  rue  de  Rivoli — the  Palais  Cardinal,  so 
soon  to  pass  as  a  gift  to  the  king  and  take  the 
name  of  the  Palais  Royal,  till  the  Revolution  of 
1793  changed  it  to  the  Palais  lllgalite',  and  the 
lordly  "pleasure  house"  of  the  great  upholder  of 
kingly  power  was  cut  up  into  gaudy  shops  and 
gaming-houses. 

After  the  performance  of  The  Cid,  which  took 
place  before  the  king  and  queen,  and  Court,  and 
a  vast  company  of  illustrious  persons,  Corneille 
returned  home  to  Rouen,  to  pursue  the  great  career 
he  was  now  launched  upon.  The  fulminations  of 
the  cardinal  through  the  Academic  Frangaise  far 
from  proving  destructive  to  his  fame,  had  probably 
cast  a  brighter  lustre  on  it.  "I  never  undertake 
anything  without  well  first  considering,  but  once  I 
have  resolved,  I  go  straight  to  my  aim  ;  I  throw  all 
down  that  is  in  my  path ;  I  mow  down  all,  and  I 
cover  all  with  my  red  robes,"  he  once  said,  and  it 
was  no  empty  boast.  Yet  the  ruling  found  its 
exception  ;  his  rancour  and  jealousy  did  its  worst, 
but  it  could  not  crush  Corneille.  It  did  not  at 
all  events  do  so.  Even  for  Richelieu  it  might  have 
been  dangerous  and  impolitic.  Gaston  d'Orle*ans,  the 


74  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

king's  brother,  who  belonged  to  the  party  of  the 
queen,  threw  in  his  influence  to  support  anything 
he  dared  in  opposition  to  the  cardinal — and  at  this 
time  Gaston  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  Ninon's 
house.  He  invited  himself  one  evening  to  dinner 
with  her,  attended  by  several  gentlemen,  and  Ninon, 
who  was  kept  in  countenance  by  her  friend,  Marion 
Delorme,  and  another  lady,  entertained  her  royal 
guest  with  an  elegant  repast  of  fish,  flesh  and  fowl, 
although  she  had  ventured  to  remind  "  Monseigneur  " 
that,  being  the  season  of  Lent,  it  was  a  questionable 
proceeding  to  have  anything  but  dishes  of  the  first 
served  up.  Gaston,  however,  had  insisted,  especially 
in  the  matter  of  roast  capon,  and  good  wine — cela  va 
sans  dire.  Whether  the  wine  was  partly  answer- 
able, or  it  was  merely  the  manners  of  the  time  that 
prompted  one  of  the  guests — M  onsieur  de  Boisrobert, 
my  lord  cardinal's  secretary — who  was  fingering  the 
leg-bone  of  a  fowl,  to  fling  it  out  of  window  at 
the  head  of  Monsieur  1'Abbe*  Dufaure,  the  venerable 
dean  of  St  Sulpice,  that  was  what  he  did.  The 
abbe  was  a  Jesuit  priest,  and  the  scandal  of  insult 
to  him  was  doubled  by  the  sin  of  eating  meat  in 
Lent.  Monseigneur  and  his  companions  finished 
the  evening  by  adjourning  to  the  house  of  Monsieur 
la  Navarre,  a  neighbour  of  Ninon's,  and  breaking  up 
the  furniture.  Then  the  prince  himself  sent  for 
the  magistrate,  and  the  functionary  arriving, 
demanded  to  be  informed  which  was  the  culprit. 
The  unfortunate  neighbour,  who  did  not  know  who 
Gaston  was,  pointed  him  out,  and  forthwith  six 
archers  were  sent  for,  who  laid  hands  on  the  prince, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  75 

and  he  was  threatened  with  handcuffing  if  he  did 
not  immediately  go  quietly  to  prison.  Upon  this 
the  gentlemen  in  attendance,  hearing  the  uproar, 
entered,  and  with  profoundest  respect  proceeded 
to  inquire  what  had  happened,  addressing  Mon- 
seigneur  by  name.  Terrified  out  of  his  senses 
at  what  he  had  done,  the  magistrate  besought 
pardon,  which  the  prince  gravely  granted,  not 
without  commanding  him  to  make  amende  honor- 
able by  holding  a  lighted  wax  taper  in  his  hand, 
and,  on  bended  knees,  confessing  his  crime  before  all 
and  individually  of  the  women  of  the  household, 
who  were  summoned  to  attend  for  the  purpose. 

So  much  for  Monseigneur's  little  amusement :  it 
was  Ninon  who  was  the  sufferer.  The  insulted  abbe 
complained  to  his  Superior,  who  complained  to  the 
magistrate  of  the  district,  and  from  mouth  to  mouth 
the  story  flew.  Not  one  man  in  black,  but  constant 
contingents  of  the  black-soutaned  fraternity  haunted 
the  rue  des  Tournelles,  and  invaded  Ninon's 
apartments,  subjecting  her  to  such  severe  inquisition 
about  her  affairs  generally,  that  it  became  unendur- 
able, and  she  wrote  to  the  prince  in  severe  reproach 
for  allowing  the  blame  of  his  folly  to  burden  and 
annoy  her.  Whereupon  Gaston  sent  two  of  his 
friends  to  mollify  the  wrath  of  the  magistrate,  who 
tore  up  the  Jesuit  Superior's  letter  of  complaint. 
But  the  scandal  only  aggravated  the  soreness  and 
complications  of  the  opposing  parties  of  the  Court, 
and  it  made  an  additional  grievance  for  Richelieu 
against  Gaston ;  though,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was 
Boisrobert,  his  own  secretary,  who  was  also  his  own 


76  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

jester-in-chief,  who  had  been  at  the  bottom  of  the 
offence,  so  that  the  affair  cut  both  ways,  and  the 
cardinal  may  have  preferred  to  see  it  hushed  up. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Richelieu  lost  by 
death  the  man  he  called  his  right  hand — Pere 
Joseph,  the  Capucin  friar — in  other  words,  "  The 
Grey  Cardinal,"  as  he  was  nicknamed ;  but  in 
fact  and  deed  the  poor  man  never  even  received 
the  bishopric  long  promised,  never  bestowed. 
Richelieu  himself  was  already  in  failing  health, 
worn  by  stress  and  anxiety  for  the  care  of  the  vast 
structure  of  kingly  power  he  had  built  up  and 
sustained,  as  it  were,  by  his  own  hand,  that  was 
against  so  many,  and  Louis  himself  was  almost  as 
much  a  nonentity  as  any  of  the  rois  faineants  of 
old  days.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  realise  that 
he  and  his  false-hearted,  selfish  brother  should  have 
been  the  sons  of  the  dauntless  Henry  of  Navarre. 

Louis  was  not  vicious  ;  it  was  his  valetudinarian 
melancholy  temperament  which  appears  to  have 
rendered  him  indifferent  to  ordinary  human 
interests.  He  made  less  than  no  pretence  of  affec- 
tion for  his  Spanish  wife,  for  whose  bright  glances 
other  men  would  have  staked  existence.  For  her, 
Buckingham  forgot  honour  and  duty  to  his  own 
royal  master,  and  did  not  spare  compromising  her 
repute.  That  is  a  page  of  history  that  remains  sealed. 
How  far  it  affected  Louis's  feelings  towards  her 
through  the  rest  of  his  life,  remains  an  open  ques- 
tion, or  whether  from  the  beginning,  love  and 
mutual  inclination  were  at  fault.  "The  wind 
bloweth  where  it  listeth,"  and  the  beauty  and 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  77 

attractions  of  Anne  of  Austria  may  never  have 
struck  a  responsive  chord  in  the  king's  heart.  He 
was  not  destitute  of  sentiment.  More  than  once  he 
strove  to  fill  the  dreary  void  with  the  sympathy  of 
other  women  of  repute  about  the  Court,  and,  in  one 
instance  at  all  events,  not  unsuccessfully  ;  but  he  was 
not  one  to  win  love  and  friendship  generally  ;  and 
the  consciousness  of  this  chilled  his  manner  still 
more,  and  threw  him  back  upon  himself.  Gaston 
d'Orle*ans,  with  all  his  grave  faults,  had  at  least 
quicker  outward  intelligence  and  sufficient  anima- 
tion to  win  some  extensive  suffrages  of  the  gentler 
sex,  notably  of  Anne  herself,  who  tolerated  his 
attentions  and  coquetted  with  him  up  to  a  certain 
point ;  though  how  far  this  was  policy,  or  from 
real  sentiment,  Court  intrigues  veil  too  entirely  to 
attempt  to  determine,  and  the  jealousy  of  Richelieu, 
himself  enamoured  of  the  queen,  had  soon  put  an  end 
to  all  the  aspirations  of  the  two  dukes.  "  There  is  no 
such  word  as  fail,"  Richelieu  was  often  heard  to  say, 
and  he  did  not  fail  to  put  his  foot  down  very  de- 
cisively when  a  league  was  formed,  which  the  queen 
herself  was  said  to  favour,  whose  end  and  aim  was 
to  depose  Louis  the  Just,  crown  Gaston,  and  give 
him  Anne  of  Austria  to  wife. 

"I  should  not  have  sufficiently  gained  by  the 
change,"  was,  however,  Anne's  reply,  when  the  accu- 
sation of  her  desire  for  this  was  made  against  her 
in  the  course  of  the  rigorous  inquiry  and  treatment 
to  which  she  and  her  friends  were  subjected.  If 
on  account  alone  of  that  time,  years  back  now,  when 
Gaston,  to  save  himself,  permitted  one  of  his  noblest 


78  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

adherents,  Chalais,    to   perish   on   the   scaffold   at 
Richelieu's   command,    Monsieur    was    not    likely 
to   be  very  favourably  regarded  by  her.     Nearly 
half  a  score  of  years  had  passed  since  the  brave 
man  had  died  in  the  flower  of  his  life,  tortured  and 
hacked  by  countless  bungling  strokes  of  a  creature 
found  at  last,  among  the  dregs  of  the  prison,  to  do 
the  hideous  task  which  the  professional  headsman 
managed  to  evade  by  absenting  himself  and  remain- 
ing perdu.     In  the  interval,  the  queen's  mother  had 
been  effectually,  and  for  ever,  banished  from  France. 
"The  Day  of  Dupes  "  had  come  and  gone,  leaving 
Richelieu    all-triumphant ;    but    still    the    contest 
raged,  and  the  virulence  of  the  minister  against  the 
queen  broke  furiously  on  the  pretext  he  found  at 
last,   of  discovering   that    she  was   keeping  up   a 
private  correspondence  with   the   King  of   Spain, 
and  the  cardinal  infant,  her  two  brothers,  and  also 
with  persons  in  Madrid  and  Brussels,  whose  friend- 
ship she  valued — the  more,  doubtless,  for  the  isola- 
tion and  lack  of  affection  and  harshness  surround- 
ing her.     It  was  a  boast  of  Richelieu's,  that  with 
only  two  lines  of  an  innocent  man's  writing  he  could 
ruin  him.  Naturally,  therefore,  however  innocent  the 
correspondence,    Anne   was   anxious   to   hold   her 
letters  uninspected  by  the  cardinal,  and  she  kept 
them  in  her  own  private  oratory  chamber  in  the 
Benedictine  convent  of  the  Val  de  Grace,  in  the  rue 
St  Jacques,  which  she  had  founded.    The  letters,  on 
their  arrival,  were  received  by  one  of  the  nuns,  who 
placed  them  away  in  a  closet  to  await  the  queen's 
coming,  and   her  replies  to  them  were  forwarded 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  79 

from  thence.  But  Richelieu's  spies  were  at  work  ; 
they  swarmed  of  course  in  Paris  ;  and  before  long 
they  scented  out  the  secret  correspondence,  and 
Richelieu  informed  the  king  of  it,  holding  up  before 
His  Majesty's  dreary  imagination  all  the  terrors 
of  national  peril  it  signified.  The  alarmed  king 
hurried  the  queen  out  of  Paris  to  the  Chateau  of 
Chantilly,  where  she  was  confined  to  her  own  rooms 
and  compelled  to  listen  to  a  string  of  rigid  interro- 
gation from  the  chancellor.  She  was  in  a  cruelly 
forlorn  situation ;  for,  in  fear  of  Richelieu's  anger 
and  the  activity  of  his  spies,  the  courtiers  and 
following  of  the  royal  pair  did  not  venture  so  much 
as  to  lift  their  eyes  to  her  window  as  they  passed. 
For  her  own  servants,  they  had  been  at  once  dis- 
posed of  in  various  prisons  ;  while  the  chancellor 
proceeded  to  ransack  the  convent  of  Val  de  Grace 
for  more  papers  and  letters.  But  it  was  labour  lost, 
which  possibly  was  no  more  than  he  expected ; 
since  it  is  believed  that  the  queen  had  warning 
from  him  of  his  intended  visit,  and  the  documents, 
for  all  they  might  be  worth,  were  safe  in  the  care 
of  Madame  de  Sourdis.  The  alarm  and  suspicion 
intensified,  when  there  was  found  upon  the  person 
of  la  Porte,  the  queen's  confidential  servant,  a  letter 
from  her  to  the  Duchess  of  Chevreuse,  long  exiled. 
La  Porte  was  thereupon,  as  a  man  of  strict  honesty 
and  fidelity  to  his  royal  mistress,  locked  away  in 
one  of  the  towers  of  the  Bastille,  and  all  the  efforts 
to  draw  from  him  anything  incriminating  the 
queen,  were  absolutely  abortive ;  though  Richelieu 
employed  every  art  to  shake  him,  from  promises 


80  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

and  emoluments,  to  threats  of  torture,  which  were 
rendered  more  real  to  his  imagination,  by  his  being 
taken  to  the  torture-chamber  for  a  sight  of  its 
equipments. 

Fortunately  for  him,  a  great  event  was  at  hand, 
which  marvellously  changed  the  aspect  of  political 
affairs.  The  queen,  after  twenty-two  years  of  child- 
lessness, was  in  a  situation  of  promise  to  give  an 
heir  to  the  throne.  Then  Richelieu  relaxed  la 
Forte's  durance  so  far  as  to  permit  his  retiring  to 
Saumur,  where  he  remained  till  the  queen  recalled 
him,  on  the  death  of  the  cardinal,  now  shadowing 
in,  bringing  with  it  the  terrible  tragedy  which  was 
the  last  act  and  deed  of  his  hand. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Melusine  —  Cinq-Mars — An  Ill-advised  Marriage — The  Con- 
spiracy— The  Revenge — The  Scaffold — A  Cry  from  the 
Bastille— The  Lady's  Man— "The  Cardinal's  Hangman"— 
Finis — Louis's  Evensong — A  Little  Oversight — The  King's 
Nightcap — Mazarin — Ninon's  Hero. 

SOME  few  miles  from  Tours,  along  the  banks  of  the 
Loire,  at  one  of  its  most  beautiful  parts  above 
Saumur,  stands  the  little  town  of  St  M^dard,  better 
known  as  Cinq-Mars.  A  ruined  castle  crowns  the 
heights  above.  It  was  the  ancestral  home  of  the 
d'Effiats,  a  noble  family  of  long  lineage ;  and 
before  their  coming,  tradition  told  of  its  being  the 
dwelling  of  Me'lusine  the  fie,  the  beautiful  snake- 
woman,  who  was  the  wife  of  Raymond,  Count  de 
Lusignan,  placed  under  the  terrible  spell  of  trans- 
formation into  a  snake,  from  the  waist  down- 
wards, every  seventh  night,  for  having  immured  her 
father  in  a  rock-bound  cavern,  for  cruelty  to  her 
mother.  Disobeying  Me*lusine's  command,  never 
to  intrude  upon  her  on  those  fatal  Saturday  nights, 
Raymond  discovered  the  appalling  reason  for  it, 
and  in  his  rage  cast  her  forth.  The  despairing  cry 
that  broke  from  her  then,  is  still  to  be  heard  of 
stormy  nights  above  the  river ;  and  it  may  be, 
mingles  with  the  lamentations  of  the  mourners  over 
the  deed  of  blood  which  was  enacted  in  after 
centuries  when  Louis  the  Just  was  king. 

The  young  lord   of  the   castle  then,  was  the 

F  8l 


82  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

son  of  the  Mare"chal  Cinq-Mars.  He  was  scarcely 
more  than  a  youth  ;  for  he  was  but  nineteen  when 
Richelieu  introduced  him  at  Court,  loading  him 
with  favours,  causing  him  to  be  made  the  royal 
master  of  the  horse,  and  otherwise  specially  re- 
commending him  to  the  notice  of  Louis,  who  con- 
ceived so  vast  a  liking  for  him,  that  it  was  even 
touched  with  some  real  warmth  ;  and  Cinq-Mars, 
handsome,  gallant,  distinguished,  brave,  and  not  a 
little  spoiled  by  the  splendour  of  his  existence,  but 
amiable  and  generous-hearted,  beloved  by  his 
friends — of  whom  a  dear  one  was  de  Thou,  the  son 
of  the  great  historian — basked  in  all  the  full  sun- 
shine of  his  young  life.  The  pale,  stern  cardinal, 
attenuated  by  bodily  suffering,  and  more  than  ever 
soured  by  care,  was  hardly  likely  to  win  much  love 
from  a  gay  butterfly  of  a  creature  like  the  young 
marquis,  and  before  long  Cinq-Mars  came  to  know 
from  Louis's  own  lips,  that  he  privately  hated 
Richelieu,  a  hate  nourished  by  his  deadly  fear  of 
him. 

Meanwhile,  Cinq-Mars  had  cast  amorous  eyes 
upon  Marion  Delorme,  the  cardinal's  protegee. 
Marion,  still  beautiful,  though  no  longer  young — 
being  in  fact  double  the  age  of  this  her  latest 
admirer — returned  his  passionate  affection,  and, 
dazzled  by  the  prospect  of  being  his  wife — for 
his  infatuation  impelled  him  to  seek  her  as  such — 
she  braved  the  consequences  of  her  protector's 
wrath,  and  the  two  were  secretly  married.  Riche- 
lieu, from  whom  nothing  could  long  be  hidden, 
was  furious  ;  he  had  planned  a  brilliant  alliance  for 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  83 

the  king's  young  favourite,  who  had  shortly  before 
leagued  himself  with  the  queen's  party ;  Gaston 
d'Orle"ans,  the  Due  de  Bouillon — burning  to  sup- 
plant the  cardinal-minister — and  others — and  they 
entered  into  correspondence  with  Olivarez,  the 
Spanish  prime-minister,  which  resulted  in  a  treaty 
of  alliance  between  him  and  the  conspiring  enemies 
of  the  cardinal.  Louis  had  for  some  time  past 
treated  Richelieu  with  coldness ;  and  Richelieu, 
suspecting  the  cause  of  it,  left  Paris,  and  went  to 
Tarascon,  to  lie  in  wait  till  his  spies  were  able  to 
place  him  in  full  possession  of  every  detail  of  the 
plot,  and  of  a  copy  of  the  treaty.  Then,  disabled 
by  illness  and  infirmity,  he  desired  to  see  the  king, 
who  travelled  for  the  interview  from  Perpignan, 
where  he  was  then  staying,  and  all  the  thunder  of 
the  cardinal's  reproaches  and  wrath  was  flung 
upon  him.  Apparently  with  justice,  Louis  suc- 
ceeded in  justifying  himself,  on  the  plea  of  ignor- 
ance, and  the  king  departed  again,  enjoining 
everybody  to  obedience  to  Richelieu  as  if  he  were 
himself. 

After  their  marriage,  Marion  and  Cinq-Mars 
went  to  the  castle  on  the  Loire,  where  they  spent 
a  brief  period  of  delight.  Only  the  servants  of 
the  household  were  there,  and  Cinq-Mars  was 
their  lord.  They  showed  willing,  even  delighted, 
obedience  to  all  his  behests ;  but  the  marquise 
his  mother  returned  home  somewhat  unexpectedly, 
and  her  anger  at  the  stolen  marriage  equalled  in 
its  way  that  of  Richelieu  himself.  Doubtless  this 
fomented  the  affair  to  a  yet  speedier  issue,  and 


84  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Cinq-Mars  was  arrested,  and  along  with  him,  his 
friend  de  Thou,  who  was  entirely  innocent  of 
complicity  in  the  plot.  The  two  were  taken  into 
the  presence  of  Richelieu  at  Tarascon  (a  place 
old  stories  tell  named  after  one  Tarasque,  "a 
fearful  dragon  who  infested  the  borders  of  the 
Rhone,  preying  upon  human  flesh,  to  the  universal 
terror  and  disturbance "),  and  hence  his  dying 
Eminence — for  death  was  very  near — commanded 
them  to  be  placed,  tied  and  bound,  in  a  boat  fastened 
behind  his  own,  in  which  he  was  returning  to  Paris 
by  the  waterway  of  the  Rhone,  as  far  as  Lyons. 
There,  being  disembarked,  the  two  young  victims 
were  led  immediately  to  a  hastily-erected  scaffold, 
and  there  bravely  they  met  their  fate  by  the  heads- 
man's axe — de  Thou  guilty  of  refusing  to  betray 
his  friend,  and  Cinq-Mars'  crime  not  proved, 
suffering  mainly  from  the  cowardly  depositions 
laid  against  him  by  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  Then 
Richelieu  continued  his  triumphal  way  to  Paris, 
where  in  his  magnificent  palace  he  died ;  and 
during  his  last  agonies,  the  king  was  seen  to 
smile  at  what  he  called  "  Death's  master-stroke 
of  policy." 

There  was  a  letter,  written  three  days  before 
the  cardinal's  death,  found  among  his  papers.  It 
was  dated  from  the  Bastille,  and  it  consisted  of 
one  bitter  reproach  of  his  injustice  to  the  writer, 
in  keeping  him  immured  in  the  terrible  place  for 
eleven  years.  It  was  a  letter  of  some  length,  and 
an  eloquently  written  appeal  for  release.  "  There 
is  a  time,  my  lord,"  it  began,  "  when  man  ceases 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  85 

to  be  barbarous  and  unjust ;  it  is  when  his  approach- 
ing dissolution  compels  him  to  descend  into  the 
gloom  of  his  conscience,  and  to  deplore  the  cares, 
griefs,  pains  and  misfortunes  which  he  has  caused 
to  his  fellow-creatures.  Had  I,"  the  unhappy 
man,  whose  name  was  Dessault,  goes  on  to  say, 
"  performed  your  order,  it  would  have  condemned 
my  soul  to  eternal  torment,  and  made  me  pass 
into  eternity  with  blood-stained  hands.  ...  I 
implore  you,  my  lord,  order  my  chains  to  be 
broken  before  your  death-hour  comes, — permit 
yourself  to  be  moved  by  the  most  humble  prayer 
of  a  man  who  has  ever  been  a  loyal  subject  to 
the  king." 

This  letter  bore  date  of  December  ist; 
on  December  4th,  the  cardinal  died.  It  is 
not  known  whether  he  ever  saw  it.  After  his 
death,  it  came  into  the  hands  of  those  on  whom 
the  power  now  devolved,  and  Dessault,  far  from 
gaining  his  release,  was  kept  in  the  Bastille  till 
the  year  of  1692,  after  being  a  prisoner  for 
sixty-one  years.  Such  remnant  of  life  as  may 
have  remained  to  him,  is  one  too  forlorn  and 
dreary  to  contemplate. 

And  to  this  piteous  appeal  were  added  the 
sobs  and  frenzied  reproaches  of  Marion  Delorme, 
who  found  access  to  the  death-chamber,  just  as 
the  cardinal  was  about  to  receive  the  Viaticum. 

A  gentleman  named  de  Saucourt  was  a  slave 
to  Ninon's  charms  at  this  time,  causing  a  vast 
amount  of  envy  among  her  friends.  He  was  a 
man  of  refinement  and  brilliant  wit,  so  raved 


86  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

about  by  the  ladies,  that  Benserade  composed 
this  quatrain  upon  him — 

"  Centre  se  fier  demon  voyez  vous  aujourd'hui 

Femme  qui  tienne  ? 

Et  toutes  cependant  sont  contentes  de  lui, 
Jusqu'  a  la  sienne." 

Ninon,  however,  was  then  suffering  great  distress 
of  mind  at  the  terrible  fate  of  Cinq- Mars,  reproach- 
ing herself  not  a  little  for  the  light,  thoughtless 
way  in  which  she  had  half  encouraged  Marion 
Delorme,  half  warned  her  off  from  accepting  the 
young  man's  rash  proposition  to  make  her  his 
wife;  for  Marion  had  seriously  consulted  her  in 
the  matter.  It  came  to  light  after  Cinq-Mars' 
death  that  it  was  Gaston  d'Orleans  himself  who 
had  in  his  possession  the  original  of  the  treaty  with 
Olivarez,  and  he  had  had  the  baseness  to  hand  this 
to  Laffemas,  the  infamous  procureur-general  and 
chief  tool  of  Richelieu,  when  the  cardinal  was  bent 
on  a  man's  destruction.  Laffemas  earned  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  called  the  cardinal's  hangman-in- 
chief.  No  one  stretched  out  a  finger  to  help 
the  Chevalier  de  Jars,  whom  Richelieu  kept  in  the 
Bastille  for  two  years,  on  the  charge  of  being  in  the 
secrets  of  Anne  of  Austria's  connections  with 
Spain.  It  was  in  vain  that  de  Jars  produced 
absolute  proof  of  his  innocence,  and  Laffemas 
added  insults  and  threats  to  the  interrogatory  he 
subjected  him  to.  Under  a  strong  guard,  de  Jars 
one  Sunday  obtained  leave  to  attend  Mass  at  St 
Gervais,  where  he  knew  the  wretched  creature 
would  be,  and  as  he  was  about  to  kneel  at  the 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  87 

altar  to  receive  the  communion,  de  Jars,  with  a 
bound,  sprang  at  him,  seized  him  by  his  pom -point, 
and  dragging  him  down  the  nave  of  the  church,  flung 
him  outside  the  door.  "  Away  with  thee! — away 
from  here,  cowardly  hypocrite  !  "  he  cried.  "  Do 
not  soil  this  holy  place  with  thy  foul  presence,"  and 
the  poisonous  reptile  crawled  away,  while  de  Jars, 
turning  to  the  officiating  priest,  said — "And  you, 
my  father,  did  you  not  know  to  whom  you  were 
about  to  give  the  Body  of  our  Lord  ?  To  an  iniqui- 
tous judge — another  Judas — an  abomination  !  " 

Finally  de  Jars  obtained  his  release,  and  spent 
his  later  life  in  peace  and  happiness,  but  not  before 
he  had  been  made  to  mount  the  scaffold  itself.  As 
he  was  about  to  lay  his  head  upon  the  block,  calmly 
defiant,  Laffemas,  who  had  got  up  the  scene  to  terrify 
de  Jars  into  a  confession,  approached  and  besought 
him,  in  consideration  of  the  pardon  he  had  brought 
him,  to  disclose  all  he  knew ;  but  he  received  scant 
satisfaction  on  the  point,  since  de  Jars,  according 
to  some  authorities,  persisted  in  his  refusal  and 
defiance  of  the  monster.  According  to  another 
account,  the  suffering  and  tension  of  mind  he  had 
endured  temporarily  deprived  him  of  conscious- 
ness, and  for  some  days  he  lay  in  a  state  of  exhaus- 
tion, from  which  he  only  gradually  recovered. 

And  those  were  but  instances  of  the  cardinal's 
tyranny,  and  there  was  so  little  his  red  robe  had 
not  covered,  sufficiently  at  all  events  for  him  to 
die  in  his  bed.  And  the  magnificent  tomb,  joint 
work  of  two  great  artists,  that  covers  the  spot  where 
he  was  laid  in  the  church  of  the  Sorbonne,  bears 


88  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

the  recumbent  statue  of  the  cardinal,  sustained  by 
Religion  and  weeping  angels. 

Whether  Louis,  the  king,  shed  any  tears,  is  not 
specially  recorded.    They  could  hardly,  in  any  case, 
have  been  more  than  of  the  crocodile  kind  ;  since  he 
was  so  very  visibly  seen  to  smile  more  than  once 
during  the  passing  away  of  his  great  minister.     In 
the  days  when  Vitry  relieved  him  of  Concini  by 
assassination,  Louis  thanked  him  warmly  for   the 
service.     "  Now  I  am  king,  Vitry,"  he  said.     But 
it  had  not  been  for  long,  except  in  name ;  for  he 
had  only  been  free  to  become  the  slave  of  Richelieu, 
and  now  his  own  life  was  ebbing  fast  away,  not, 
apparently,   to  his  very  great  regret.     Those  last 
days  were  sorely  troubled   at   the   thought  of  his 
mother,  who  had  died   in   exile  at  Cologne.     He 
put  the  blame  of  this  on  Richelieu,  and  made  all 
the  reparation  now  possible,  by  ordering   prayers 
throughout  the  kingdom  for  the  repose  of  her  soul. 
This  seemed  to  bring  him  some  tranquillity,  of  mind. 
He  loved  music,  and   he   composed  for  himself  a 
De  Profundis  to  be   chanted  when  his   last  hour 
should  arrive.     Seated  one  day  at  the  window  of 
the   Chateau  of  St  Germains,  he    pointed  out  the 
route  which  was  best   for   the   funeral   cortege  to 
follow,  to  reach  St  Denis,  and  reminded  of  a  turn 
of  the  road  which  was  awkward  to  pass,  bidding 
care  be  taken  to  keep  the  hearse  well  in  hand. 

The  death  of  Richelieu  in  no  way  softened  the 
strained  relations  and  conjugal  coldness  between 
the  king  and  queen.  On  the  day  of  the  child's 
birth,  Louis  was  about  to  leave  the  queen  without 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  89 

bestowing  the  embrace  customary  on  such  occa- 
sions, until  he  was  reminded  of  his  omission,  which 
only  a  stretch  of  courtesy  might  call  forgetfulness. 

The  little  Louis,  who  was  in  his  fifth  year  at  the 
time  of  the  king's  death,  does  not  seem  greatly 
to  have  interested  him  or  afforded  him  any  satis- 
faction ;  while  the  child  rather  shrank  from  him, 
notably  when  he  saw  him  in  his  nightcap.  Then 
he  broke  into  piercing  screams  of  terror.  This  the 
king  laid,  with  all  her  other  misdeeds,  at  the  queen's 
door.  He  declared  that  she  prompted  the  little 
boy  to  his  objections. 

It  was  a  pitiable  ending  to  a  melancholy 
existence — inexpressibly  lonely,  for  in  those  last 
months,  Anne  left  him  entirely  to  himself.  Less 
desolate  than  the  king,  finding  distraction  for  ennui 
in  the  society  of  her  ladies,  and  the  gentlemen  of  her 
own  little  Court,  among  whom  Monsignor  Giulio 
Mazarini  figured  ever  more  and  more  prominently. 

Previously  to  Richelieu's  death,  the  handsome, 
fascinating  Mazarin  had  been  a  constant  frequenter 
of  Ninon's  reunions  ;  but  from  these  he  soon  with- 
drew almost  entirely,  in  favour  of  the  dazzling 
metal  to  be  found  in  the  Louvre,  for  there  it  rang 
of  ambitions,  which  there  was  every  chance  of 
finding  fully  satisfied.  His  first  master-stroke  was 
to  set  aside  the  late  king's  will — which  constituted  a 
counsel  of  regency,  himself  being  chief  of  the 
counsel,  which  he  had  himself  recommended  to 
Louis  —  making  Anne  regent,  with  himself  for 
prime-minister.  The  king  was  dead,  Louis  XIV. 
but  a  small  child,  and  for  Mazarin  it  was 


90  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  Long  live  the  Queen  !  "  while  Ninon  found  ample 
consolation  in  the  devotion  of  her  splendid  hero, 
Louis  de  Bourbon,  the  great  Conde*,  Due  d'Enghien. 
Hitherto  love  had  been  a  fragile  toy  for  her, 
hanging  about  her  by  the  lightest  of  chains 
made  to  be  broken.  For  Cond6,  the  sentiment 
lay  deeper,  nourished  by  the  breath  of  adulation 
surrounding  him  when  he  returned,  victorious  over 
the  Spaniards,  from  the  field  of  Rocroi ;  and  she 
was  fired  to  flames  of  admiration  and  of  delight  in 
his  distinguished  presence.  Handsome,  amiable, 
gallant,  to  Ninon  and  to  France  he  was  as  a  demi- 
god. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

"  Loving  like  a  Madman"— A  Great  Transformation—The  Unjust 
Tax — Parted  Lovers — A  Gay  Court,  and  A  School  for  Scandal 
and  Mazarin's  Policy — The  Regent's  Caprices — The  King's 
Upholsterer's  Young  Son  — The  Theatre  Illustre— The 
Company  of  Monsieur  and  Moliere. 

"A  MAN  of  sense  may  love  like  a  madman,  but 
never  like  a  fool."  It  is  the  dictum  of  Frangois  de 
la  Rochefoucauld,  and  must  have  been  framed  from 
his  deep  attachment  to  Conde's  sister,  Madame  de 
Longueville,  one  of  the  most  charming  of  the 
women  of  the  great  world  at  that  time,  and  bound 
by  ties  of  close  friendship  with  Ninon. 

It  was  no  one-sided  love,  no  case  of  the  one  who 
loves,  and  the  one  who  merely  consents  to  it ;  but 
mutual,  and  as  passionate,  as  certainly  for  a  time 
the  flame  was  pure,  shining  with  a  clear,  unflecked 
radiance. 

Madame  de  Longueville,  who  was  wedded  to  an 
old  man,  was  singularly  fascinating,  from  her  gentle 
manners  and  amiability.  Her  face  was  not  strictly 
beautiful,  and  bore  traces  of  the  smallpox,  the  cruel 
scourge  then  of  so  many  beautiful  faces ;  her  eyes 
were  full  of  a  softened  light,  and  she  had  the  gift 
of  a  most  sweet  voice,  while  her  smile  was  gentle 
and  irresistibly  winning.  The  dreamy,  romantic, 
somewhat  melancholy-natured  de  la  Rochefou- 
cauld's heart  was  laid  at  her  feet  in  whole  and  un- 
divided adoration.  For  their  conscious  love,  each 

91 


92  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

strove  against  the  temptation,  she  so  earnestly,  that 
she  shut  herself  away  from  all  chance  of  so  much  as 
seeing  him  for  a  little  while.  But  Ninon  slipped  in 
with  her  philosophy.  It  was  quite  true,  she  argued 
to  Madame  de  Longueville,  that  there  were  grave 
considerations  to  be  respected — the  indissoluble 
tie  of  marriage,  convenances  to  be  observed — all 
these ;  but  to  hide  herself  away,  to  refuse  the 
unhappy  prince  the  alleviation  of  gazing  at  her,  of 
exchanging  a  few  fleeting  words — no,  it  was 
monstrously  absurd.  The  very  Platoniciens  did 
not  go  such  lengths.  No,  if  complete  happiness 
could  not  be  theirs,  at  least  a  smile,  a  glance,  was 
permitted ;  and  Ninon's  counsel  wound  up  with  a 
suggestion  to  the  disconsolate  prince,  that  he  should 
try  what  a  little  note  to  the  woman  he  adored  would 
effect,  and  he  wrote — "  Show  yourself — be  beauti- 
ful, and  at  least  let  me  admire  you." 

And  Ninon  delivered  the  billet,  and  its  effect 
was  marvellous.  It  conquered  the  young  duchess's 
natural  timidity  and  retiring  disposition.  She  took 
courage ;  she  assumed  her  rightful  place  in  the 
world  ;  she  appeared  at  the  Louvre  ;  she  kept  open 
house  and  gave  brilliant  receptions ;  she  took  her 
seat  on  the  tabouret  of  the  duchesses  ;  her  toilettes 
were  magnificent ;  she  shone  brilliantly  in  con- 
versation, and  began  to  take  part  in  Court  intrigues  ; 
ere  long  very  actively. 

"  With  two  lines  of  a  man's  writing,"  had  said 
Mazarin's  great  predecessor,  "  I  could  condemn 
him  "  ;  and  with  two  lines  of  that  magical  pen  of  the 
Count  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  Madame  de  Longueville 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  93 

became  another  woman.  As  in  the  matter  of  her 
warm  attachment  to  her  lover,  she  was  constant  in 
her  politics  ;  while  Louis  de  Conoid,  all-conquering 
at  Rocroi,  yielded  himself  captive  to  the  charms  of 
Ninon  de  L'Enclos — a  veritable  lion  in  love ;  not 
so  blindly,  however,  that  he  was  insensible  to  the 
wrongs  of  the  people,  upon  whom  a  tax  had  been 
levied  of  a  specially  hateful  kind.  It  was  called  the 
Toise*,  and  was  a  revival  of  an  old  edict  long  fallen 
into  desuetude.  To  the  Italian,  d'Eme'ri,  to  whom 
Mazarin  had  entrusted  the  control  of  public 
finances,  was  due  its  discovery  and  resuscitation. 
This  edict  forbade  the  enlargement  of  the  borders 
of  Paris,  and  as  recently  new  buildings  had  been, 
and  were  being,  in  course  of  construction  far  and 
wide,  the  owners  of  these  were  threatened  with 
confiscation  of  their  materials,  unless  they  con- 
sented to  pay  for  their  newly-erected  houses  and 
other  buildings,  a  rate  regulated  by  measure- 
ment of  the  size  of  them.  This  pressed  cruelly 
on  the  people.  Loud  murmurs  were  excited.  The 
Parliament  expostulated,  and  the  Toise"  was  with- 
drawn. It  was  the  first  stone  slung  by  the  Fronde. 
Condi's  indignation  was  great ;  and  one  day,  in  the 
rue  St  Antoine,  he  laid  flat  with  his  sword  the  body 
of  some  wretched  collector  who  had  snatched  away 
a  child's  cradle  from  a  poor  woman.  His  act  gave 
great  offence  to  the  queen,  who  saw  in  it  defiance 
of  Mazarin.  Both  at  home  and  abroad,  there  was 
plenty  stirring  to  keep  existence  from  stagnating ; 
but  for  a  few  brief  delightful  weeks  the  Due 
d'Enghien  sought  retirement  and  tranquillity 


94  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

in  his  chateau  of  Petit  Chantilly,  in  company  with 
Ninon,  who  left  the  rue  des  Tournelles  dwelling 
to  take  care  of  itself.  It  was  the  iniquitous  Toise 
which  broke  in  upon  their  content ;  for  the  queen 
sent  for  the  duke,  to  consult  him  in  the  emergency 
created  by  the  cardinal  favourite. 

After  the  Toise"  prologue,  however,  the  opening 
scenes  of  the  inglorious  turmoil  of  the  Fronde 
did  not  see  Cond6 ;  for  Austria  once  more 
took  up  arms,  and  he  lost  not  a  moment  in 
hastening  to  the  frontier.  If  it  is  indeed  a 
fact  that  Ninon  accompanied  him  thither  in  the 
guise  of  a  young  aide-de-camp,  mounted  on  a 
fiery  charger,  it  was  but  to  re-enact  her  former 
exploits ;  and  Ninon  was  nothing  if  not  daring. 
That  her  presence  on  the  field  of  Nordlingen  could 
have  been  really  anything  but  exceedingly  encum- 
bering, is  more  than  imaginable.  At  all  events 
Conde"  soon  begged  her  to  return  to  Paris,  in  order 
to  go  and  console  his  sister,  Madame  de  Longueville, 
who  had  been  summoned  to  attend  his  father,  the 
Due  de  Cond6,  in  an  illness  threatening  to  be  fatal. 
Arrived  at  Paris,  she  found  the  sufferer  very  much 
better,  and  writing  to  inform  the  Due  d'Enghien  of 
this  pleasant  intelligence,  she  begged  to  be  allowed 
to  return  to  him.  The  duke,  however,  replied  that 
it  was  hardly  worth  while ;  as  he  should  soon  be 
back.  To  pass  the  tedium  of  his  absence,  Ninon 
resumed  her  reunions,  finding  pleasant  distraction 
in  the  society  of  her  friends,  among  which  were  two 
ladies  distinguished  for  their  birth  and  undoubted 
talents,  scarcely  less  than  notorious,  even  in  those 


NINON  DE  L'ENGLOS  95 

days,  for  their  openly  lax  mode  of  life.  One  of 
these  was  Madame  de  la  Sabliere,  a  notable 
member  of  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet  cottrie.  A 
really  brilliant  mathematician,  she  was  at  least 
equally  skilful  in  the  science  of  love — so  ardent  a 
student,  that  one  day  her  uncle,  a  grave  magis- 
trate, scandalised  out  of  all  endurance  at  her  ways, 
remonstrated  severely,  reminding  her  that  the 
beasts  of  the  field  observed  more  order  and  season- 
able regulation  in  their  love-affairs. 

"Ah,  dear  uncle,"  said  the  gifted  lady,  "that  is 
because  they  are  beasts." 

Madame  de  Chevreuse  was  the  other  specially 
chosen  spirit  of  her  own  sex  Ninon  now  consorted 
with.  After  the  death  of  Richelieu,  who  had  exiled 
her  at  the  time  of  the  Val  de  Grace  affair,  she  was 
allowed  to  return  to  France,  attended  by  the  Abbe* 
de  Retz,  Paul  de  Gondi,  whom  Louis  XIII.,  on 
his  deathbed,  had  appointed  coadjutor  to  the 
new  archbishopric  of  Paris.  De  Retz  had  himself 
aspired  to  the  archbishopric,  and  swore  that  he 
would  obtain  a  cardinalate. 

The  Court  was  now  brilliantly  gay.  The 
gloomy  and  sombre  atmosphere  of  Louis  XIII. 
and  of  Richelieu's  day  faded  all  in  a  succession  of 
balls  and  f£tes  and  every  sort  of  festivity.  Anne 
of  Austria  enlarged  the  south  side  of  the  Louvre, 
and  Grimaldi  and  Romanelli  adorned  the  chambers 
and  galleries  with  their  exquisite  skill.  Poussin, 
whose  friezes  terminated  the  ends  of  the  great 
gallery,  had  had  apartments  assigned  him  in  the 
Louvre,  in  order  to  carry  on  his  work  with  greater 


96  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

facility ;  but  he  had  retired  in  displeasure  at  the 
criticisms  of  his  brother-artists,  and  went  to  Rome, 
where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life,  leaving  in 
Paris  immortal  memories  of  his  genius,  among  them 
the  altarpiece  for  the  chapel  of  St  Germain  en 
Laye,  and  the  mournful  Arcadian  Shepherd, 
"  Et  in  Arcadia  Ego." 

So  the  never-ending  round  of  gaiety  was  set  in 
motion  by  Mazarin,  and  Anne  of  Austria  was  the 
regent.  Anne,  still  handsome,  and  by  nature  frivolous 
under  her  somewhat  cold  Spanish  demeanour — surely 
a  born  coquette,  delighting  in  show  and  magnifi- 
cence, none  the  less  that  she  had  so  long  lived  under 
repression.  The  queen,  apparently,  was  the  reign- 
ing power  ;  but  it  was  the  crafty  prime-minister 
who  pulled  the  strings,  and  set  the  puppets  danc- 
ing and  fiddling,  and  amorously  intriguing,  so  that 
they  should  leave  him  to  carry  on  his  politics,  and 
mount  to  the  heights  of  his  ambition  and  power  in 
his  own  unhindered  way.  Unlike  his  great  pre- 
decessor, he  was  handsome,  and  good-natured  in 
manner,  and  therefore  an  ornament  in  those 
brilliant  assemblies.  Wrote  St  Evr^mond — 

"  J'ai  vu  le  temps  de  la  bonne  regence, 
Temps  ou  regnait  une  heureuse  abondance, 
Temps  ou  la  ville  aussi  bien  que  la  cour 
Ne  respirait  que  les  jeux  et  1'amour. 

Une  politique  indulgente 

De  notre  nature  innocente 

Favorisait  tous  les  desirs 

Tout  degout  semblait  legitime  ; 
La  douce  erreur  ne  s'appelait  point  crime, 
Les  vices  defeats  se  nommait  des  plaisirs." 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  97 

Very  pleasant   and   entertaining   the  world  of 
society  was  then ;  and  seasoned  as  it  was  with  even 
unusual  spice  of  malice  and  spite,  scandal  was  rife. 
Among  others,  the  stepmother  of  Madame  de  Chev- 
reuse,  Madame  de  Montbazon,  who  was  married  to 
the  old  Due  de  Rohan,  was  a  past-mistress  in  the 
gentle  art  of  making  mischief ;  and  where  the  material 
was  insufficient,  she  manufactured  it  without  scruple. 
In  this  way  she  nearly  succeeded  in  bringing  a  rift 
into  the  love-harmonies  of  Henri  de  la  Rochefou- 
cauld  and   his   adored    Madame    de    Longueville, 
by   means   of   sheer,    brazen   lying,    alleging  that 
certain  letters  of  Madame  de  Longueville,  which 
had  been  found,  had  dropped  from  the  pocket  of 
Coligny.     It  was  a  pitiful  fabrication,  and  Madame 
de  Montbazon — of  whom  de  Retz,  in  his  Memoirs, 
says    "  I   never   saw   any  person   showing   in   her 
vices  less  respect  for  virtue  " — did  not  come  out  of 
it  with  very  flying  colours,  for  all  her  best  efforts 
at   effrontery,    and   she   received   an    order    from 
Mazarin  to  retire  to  Tours.     The  letters,  in  effect, 
proved  to  be  not  those  of  Madame  de  Longueville 
at  all ;  and  the  pocket  they  dropped  out  of,  was  not 
Coligny 's.     It  was  altogether  an  affair  of  another 
pair  of  lovers. 

The  embellishments  of  the  Louvre  were  still  not 
completed,  before  the  queen  decided  not  to  reside 
in  it.  She  began  to  recall,  rather  tardily  it  would 
seem,  all  the  lugubrious  memories  of  her  past  life 
connected  with  the  palace  ;  and  she  established  her- 
self in  the  magnificent  Palais  Royal — originally 
the  Palais  Cardinal. 


98  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

In  all  those  festivities,  Ninon  took  prominent 
part.  Ever  philosophical,  she  thus  consoled  her- 
self for  the  prolonged  absence  of  the  Due 
d'Enghien,  an  absence  which  had,  moreover,  not 
intensified  the  sentiments  of  adoration  she  at  first 
conceived  for  him.  It  was  but  Ninon's  way.  She 
had  begun  to  see  small  defects  in  the  case-armour 
of  the  perfection  of  her  Mars.  Her  acquaintance 
with  the  dead  languages  supplied  her  with  the 
Latin  proverb,  "  vir pilosus,  aut  libidinum  aut  fortis" 
"  Now  Esau  was  a  hairy  man,"  and  the  Due 
d'Enghien  was  also  vir  pilosus,  and  Ninon  taxed 
him  with  being  a  greater  warrior  than  an  ardent 
wooer,  and  the  passion  cooled  rapidly ;  but  the 
friendship  and  mutual  liking  ever  remained. 

Ninon  employed  Poquelin,  upholsterer  to  the 
king,  in  the  furnishing  of  her  elegant  suite  of  apart- 
ments. His  shop  was  in  the  rue  St  Honore,  and 
there  was  born  his  son,  Jean  Baptiste,  an  intelligent, 
rather  delicate-looking  little  boy,  whom  he  duly 
educated  and  trained  for  his  own  trade.  Young  Jean 
Baptiste,  however,  fairly  submissive  and  obedient, 
was  also  very  fond  of  reading  and  writing,  the  only 
two  acquirements  his  father  thought  necessary  for 
assisting  the  chair  and  table-making  the  boy's  future 
was  destined  for.  Fortunately  he  had  a  very  kind 
grandfather  who  loved  the  drama,  and  sometimes 
he  would  take  little  Jean  Baptiste  with  him  to  see  the 
performances  at  The  Hotel  Bourgogne.  Poquelin 
pere  looked  with  distrust  on  these  excursions,  think- 
ing that  he  saw  in  the  lad,  as  undoubtedly  he  did, 
growing  aversion  to  the  upholstery  vocation,  and  a 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  99 

fast  developing  passion  for  tragedy  and  comedy — 
comedy  very  markedly — and  the  boy's  delight  in 
study  and  books  generally,  created  a  disturbance  in 
the  good  upholsterer's  mind,  which  culminated  in 
distress,  when  it  became  certain  beyond  all  question, 
that  young  Jean's  liking  was  as  small  for  cabinet- 
making  as  it  was  unconquerable  for  literature.     He 
was  at  that  time  about  fourteen  years  old,  and  he 
carried  about  with  him  a  small  comedy  he  had  com- 
posed called  r Amour  Mddecin^  which   Ninon  one 
day,  when  he  came  to  assist  his  father  at  her  house, 
detected,  rolled  up  under  his  arm.     Won  by  her 
kind  smiles,  young  Poquelin  was  induced  to  allow 
her  to  look  at  it,  and  she,  no  mean  critic,  saw  such 
promise  in  it,  that  she  showed  it  to  Corneille — who 
was  then  staying  with  her,  pending  the  representa- 
tion of  The  Cid.     Corneille  warmly  seconded  her 
estimate  of  the  boy's  promise  of  unusual  dramatic 
gifts ;  and  after  great  demur,  Poquelin  yielded  to 
the  good  grandfather's  persuasions  to  send  him  to 
college.      Several   helping    hands,    Ninon    among 
them,  contributed  to  the  necessary  funds  for  this 
new  career,  and  Jean  Baptiste  became  a  pupil  of 
the  Jesuits  at  Clermont.     There  he  studied  for  five 
years,  in  the  same  class  with  Armand  de  Bourbon, 
Prince  de  Conti,  the  youngest  brother  of  Madame 
de  Longueville,  who  promised  Ninon   the   special 
protection  and  friendship  of  Armand,  and  of  the 
college  preceptors,  a  promise  that  was  ever  faith- 
fully held  by ;  and  the  celebrated  teacher  Gassendi 
took  him  under  his  special  care,  with  two  other 
gifted  lads  confided  to  him. 


ioo  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

At  the  end  of  the  five  years,  Jean  Baptiste  was 
forced  to  resume  his  old  occupation,  on  account  of 
his  father's  increasing  infirmities.  But  it  was  not 
for  long.  Richelieu's  love  of  letters,  and  of  the 
drama  especially,  brought  him  knowledge  of  young 
Poquelin's  talent,  and  made  the  difficult  way  of 
literature  easier  for  him;  for  the  theatre  was  be- 
ginning to  flourish.  There  was  no  regular  company 
of  actors  in  Paris  until  the  coming  of  Corneille. 
Only  a  few  of  the  "rogue  and  vagabond  "  wearers 
of  the  sock  and  buskin  came  and  went,  selling  their 
plays,  when  they  could  find  buyers,  for  some  ten 
crowns  apiece.  The  comedies  of  Corneille  caused 
the  establishment  of  a  dramatic  troupe  in  the  city, 
and  then  it  was  that  young  Poquelin,  leaving  the 
upholstery  to  the  dogs,  established  a  small  company 
of  young  men — "  stage-struck"  as  the  mockers  were 
pleased  to  say,  in  this  instance  guided  however 
by  the  sterling  judgment  of  Jean  Baptiste,  truly 
dramatically  gifted,  in  the  Faubourg  St  Germain. 
They  called  it  the  Illustrious  Theatre — (1'Illustre 
Theatre).  So  through  the  years  of  the  ignoble 
strife  of  the  Fronde,  when  times  were  arid  for  real 
literary  talent,  Poquelin  acted  and  composed  little 
comedies,  mainly  for  the  provinces.  Travelling 
with  his  company  to  Languedoc,  where  the  Prince 
de  Conti  happened  to  be  staying  on  his  estates, 
Poquelin  produced  before  him  several  of  his 
pieces,  afterwards  finding  their  world-wide  re- 
nown, FJ^tourdi,  le  Ddpit  Amoureux,  and  others. 
The  Prince  de  Conti  introduced  him  to  Monsieur, 
the  only  brother  of  Louis  XIV.  ;  and  in  a 


To  face  page  100. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  101 

short  time  there  came  a  day  of  days  when  the 
command  of  their  Majesties  reached  the  actor- 
manager,  to  give  a  representation  in  the  chamber 
of  the  Guards  in  the  old  Louvre.  After  the  per- 
formance of  this  long  five-act  piece,  Poquelin — 
who  had  followed  the  custom  of  the  actors  of  his 
time,  had  taken  another  name,  and  selected  Moliere 
— stepped  to  the  front,  and  begged  His  Majesty's 
permission  to  play  a  short  one-act  piece.  It  was 
le  Docteur  Amoureux.  This  is  possibly  the  origin 
of  the  custom,  still  so  frequently  observed,  of  the 
"  Curtain-raiser." 

Now  established  at  Paris,  Moli£re's  company, 
which  he  styled  the  Troupe  de  Monsieur,  his  patron, 
was  accorded  the  Salle  of  the  Palais  Royal,  for  the 
representation  of  his  piece.  It  had  been  originally 
constructed  for  the  cardinal's  tragedy  of  Mir  ante, 
and  "The  chamber,"  says  Voltaire,  "for  dramatic 
purposes,  is  as  bad  as  the  piece  for  which  it  was 
built." 

Moliere  had  a  very  agreeable  personality.  He 
was  a  little  above  medium  height,  well-built  and  of 
noble  presence.  His  gait  was  dignified,  his  nose 
and  mouth  were  large,  and  his  lips  full ;  his  com- 
plexion was  dark  with  black,  thick  eyebrows,  and 
these  he  could  control  to  giving  his  face  all  sorts  of 
comic  expressions.  His  manner  was  gentle,  pleas- 
ing and  kindly.  He  loved  to  speak,  and  when  he 
read  his  plays  to  his  company,  he  liked  them  to 
bring  their  children,  so  that  he  might  study  their 
ways  and  actions. 

Moliere,  having  the  good  or  the  ill  fortune,  as  it 


102  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

may  be,  to  become  such  a  distinguished  public 
favourite,  had  his  fair  number  of  enemies  among  his 
many  friends.  His  chief  detractors  were,  of  course, 
to  be  found  among  the  bad  authors  and  the  great  un- 
acted ;  also  the  "  unco'  guid  "  tried  to  sting  him  hard, 
and  in  a  measure  succeeded — as  when  do  they  not 
when  their  poison  is  dropped  upon  sensitive  natures  ? 
But  the  warmth  of  the  Sun -King's  admiration 
and  patronage  greatly  shielded  him.  His  Majesty 
bestowed  a  canonry  on  his  son. 

Moliere  had  a  physician,  Mauvilain.  It  was 
rather  an  unfortunate  name,  and  one  day  when  he 
was  dining  with  the  king,  Louis  asked  him  about 
him.  "  You  have  a  doctor/'  he  said  ;  "  what  does 
he  do  for  you  ?  " 

"  Sire,"  replied  Moliere,  "  we  gossip  together  ;  he 
prescribes  me  remedies  ;  I  do  not  take  them — and  I 
am  cured." 

That  Ninon  was  proud  of  the  brilliant  man  she 
had  so  signally  helped  to  befriend  as  a  lad,  may 
well  be  conceived,  and  whenever  a  new  piece  was 
produced,  she  was  always  there  to  witness  it,  in  one 
of  the  most  honoured  places  reserved  for  her. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Rift  in  the  Lute — In  the  Vexin — The  Miracle  of  the 
Gardener's  Cottage — Italian  Opera  in  Paris — Parted  Lovers 
— "  Ninum  " — Scarron  and  Franchise  d'Aubigne — Treachery 
— A  Journey  to  Naples — Masaniello — Renewing  Acquaint- 
ances— Mazarin's  Mandate. 

AGAIN  victorious  at  Nordlingen,  the  Due  d'Enghien, 
now  Prince  de  Conde,  for  his  father  was  now  dead, 
returned  to  Paris — but  not  to  Ninon.  She  had 
given  great  offence  to  his  family  by  permitting  de 
la  Rochefoucauld  and  Madame  de  Longueville  to 
meet  at  her  house,  and  Conde  sternly  reproached 
her  for  the  indiscretion  ;  hence  the  tie  between  them 
was  broken — perhaps  merely  a  little  sooner  than 
otherwise  ;  for  the  distinction  of  winning  the  admira- 
tion ot  the  hero  of  the  hour  had  played  for  Ninon 
a  very  powerful  part  in  the  liaison.  And  after  all,  she 
preferred  to  receive  homage  more  than  to  offer  it  ; 
for  though  she  liked  to  ruffle  it  in  masculine  attire, 
she  was  a  very  woman;  and  taking  her  heart  back 
again,  she  permitted  it  to  be  captured  by  the  Marquis 
de  Villarceaux,  who  had  sued  for  long  past.  Villar- 
ceaux  was  handsome  and  agreeable,  but  he  had  a 
serious  defect  in  Ninon's  eyes  :  he  was  fair,  and  a 
fat  man  or  a  fair  man  she  ordinarily  found  detest- 
able. Still  he  was  eloquent,  and  she  allowed  her- 
self to  be  persuaded  to  go  and  rusticate  with  him 
in  the  Vexin,  as  the  guest  of  a  friend  of  the  Marquis, 
Monsieur  de  Vicariville.  This  gentleman  found 

103 


104  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

great  pleasure  in  discoursing  on  philosophical  themes 
with  Ninon,  while  Monsieur  Villarceaux  went  out  to 
amuse  himself  in  the  neighbourhood,  flitting  from 
flower  to  flower,  as  ready  to  converse  with  the 
maids  as  with  the  mistress. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  days,  visitors  arrived  at 
the  chateau.  One  of  them  was  the  Chevalier  Villars 
Orondate,  afterwards  ambassador  to  Spain,  a  man 
full  of  originality  and  humour.  During  his  stay,  he 
rendered  his  host  a  signal  service  by  the  exercise  of 
his  quaint  wit  and  ingenuity.  Monsieur  de  Vicari- 
ville's  chateau  was  reached  by  a  long,  noble  avenue, 
whose  perspective  would  have  been  incomparable, 
but  for  the  intrusion  of  a  miserable  tumbledown 
cottage  just  about  midway. 

Large  sums  had  been  offered  when  the  avenue 
was  made,  to  its  owner,  whose  name  was  J drome,  to 
sell  his  small  holding ;  but  he  flatly  refused.  His 
father  had  built  the  cottage,  he  had  been  born  in 
it,  and  desired  to  die  in  it  when  his  time  came, 
continuing  meanwhile  to  follow  in  it  his  trade, 
which  was  a  tailor's  ;  and  the  eyesore  had  to  be  left. 

Orondate  asked  his  host  what  he  would  give 
him  if  he  got  the  cottage  removed  within  a  week's 
time. 

"  With  Jerome's  consent,  of  course  ? "  laughed 
Vicariville. 

"That  would  not  be  required." 

"  I  would  give  you  a  hundred  louis,  gladly." 

"  Money  ?  For  shame  !  It  is  for  glory's  sake  I 
would  go  to  work — or  at  all  events  for  a  kiss  from 
Mademoiselle." 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  105 

Villarceaux  demurred  at  this;  but  Ninon  cheer- 
fully agreed ;  and  going  in  search  of  the  tailor, 
Orondate  told  him  he  wanted  a  handsome  suit 
made  for  Monsieur  de  Villarceaux,  who  was  going 
to  Court  with  him.  Was  he  capable  of  fulfilling 
the  order?  Certainly,  Jerome  was  as  able  to  do 
it  as  the  grandest  tailor  in  Paris. 

"  Very  good.  I  will  give  you  a  pistole  a  day, 
if  you  agree  to  come  and  work  in  the  chateau, 
never  leaving  off  all  day,  and  entirely  under  my 
supervision.  Your  food  will  be  all  found  for  you  ; 
and  you  will  be  paid  on  completion  of  the 
task." 

The  tailor  accepted  the  bargain  with  delight, 
and  fell  to  work ;  while  Orondate  caused  a  scrupul- 
ously exact  plan  of  the  cottage  to  be  made,  with 
precise  measurements  of  every  thing  in  its  interior, 
taking  note  even  of  the  position  of  each  piece  of 
furniture,  and  the  smallest  object  in  the  place. 
Then  he  had  the  entire  cottage  taken  to  pieces, 
the  walls  knocked  down,  and  the  whole  load  of 
it  transported  to  a  spot  a  little  outside  the  avenue. 
There  the  skilful  workmen  he  had  engaged,  put 
it  all  together  again,  and  all  the  smallest  things 
back  in  their  places,  not  forgetting  the  good  man's 
little  soup  saucepan,  and  the  enclosing  garden 
hedge. 

The  avenue,  meanwhile,  was  carefully  swept, 
and  cleared  of  all  traces  of  the  removal.  Nothing 
remained  to  be  seen  of  either  the  cottage  or  the 
garden. 

The   tailor's   work    being   now   completed,    he 


106  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

received  his  honorarium  from  Orondate,  with  a 
couple  of  louis  in  addition.  Then  going  home, 
well  satisfied,  towards  nightfall  he  passed  down  the 
avenue.  It  seemed  rather  long,  yet  he  arrived  at 
the  end  at  last,  sooner  than  he  quite  expected. 
Returning,  he  came  and  went,  came  and  went,  and 
could  find  his  house  nowhere.  The  poor  man 
spent  the  night  in  searching  for  it.  The  day 
broke,  and  shed  light  on  the  avenue,  but  there 
was  no  cottage.  Had  the  foul  fiend  been  at  work  ? 
Reaching  the  outskirts  of  the  park,  he  saw,  just 
beyond  the  wall,  a  house  resembling  his  own. 
Rushing  forward,  he  recognised  his  own  shelter- 
ing trees,  the  garden,  the  grass-plot,  and  the 
honeysuckle  hedge.  The  door  faced  him,  and 
Jerome  inserted  the  key  in  its  lock. 

It  fell  open  smoothly.  Going  in,  he  found 
everything  in  its  proper  place — only  the  table, 
instead  of  being  bare,  bore  a  smoking  hot  leg  of 
mutton,  flanked  by  two  bottles  of  wine. 

The  tailor  crossed  himself  devoutly,  convinced 
that  he  was  bewitched. 

The  leg  of  mutton,  however,  looked  appetising, 
and  Jerome  was  hungry  after-  his  long  nocturnal 
perambulations  ;  he  approached  the  joint,  and  con- 
templated it  with  lessening  repugnance.  Then,  fetch- 
ing his  little  holy-water  brush,  he  sprinkled  the 
mutton  to  see  if  it  disappeared ;  but  it  smoked  on. 
It  certainly  had  not  been  cooked  in  the  infernal 
regions.  J drome  took  heart  therefore,  and  sat 
down  to  dine. 

The  authors  of  this  curious  transformation  scene, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  107 

concealed  to  watch  what  would  happen,  waited  till 
Je'rome  had  well  banqueted  ;  then  they  entered,  and 
with  bursts  of  laughter,  asked  him  what  he  thought 
of  the  sorcerers  of  the  chateau  ? 

Monsieur  Orondate  was  paid  the  price  he  had 
asked,  Monsieur  Vicariville  gave  Jerome  the  hundred 
louis  his  guest  had  declined,  and  the  tailor  con- 
tented himself  with  pulling  a  grimace  at  the  trick 
which  had  been  played  him.1 

It  was  Mazarin  France  had  to  thank  for  estab- 
lishing in  Paris,  musical  Italian  plays,  in  other 
words,  Italian  operas.  From  time  to  time,  since 
the  days  of  Henri  III.,  Italian  dramatic  singers 
had  visited  Paris,  finding  no  regular  stage  or 
fair  opportunity  for  their  beautiful  presentations. 
Mazarin,  however,  secured  them  the  rights  for  these 
at  the  Hotel  Bourgogne,  and  by  one  of  the  exercises 
of  his  wily  ingenuity,  also  contrived  to  win  away 
from  Charles  II.  Budeaud,  the  musical  leader  of 
the  Court-revels  in  London,  as  the  conductor  of  the 
Paris  company. 

Early  in  the  winter,  whose  approach  brought 
Ninon  and  everybody  back  to  Paris,  invitations 
were  issued  for  the  performance  of  an  Italian  opera 
on  a  magnificent  scale,  in  the  Palais  Royal,  and 
to  Ninon  the  invitation  was  sent  by  the  Due  de 
Conde — who  had  repented  of  his  harsh  estimate 
of  her  conduct — and  finding  his  way  to  her  fauteuil 
in  the  course  of  the  performance,  the  two  made 

1  This  anecdote  is  attributed  by  St  Simon  to  another  source, 
and  to  a  much  later  date ;  but  it  truly  occurred  as  here  recorded. 


io8  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

their  peace  by  mutual  concessions.  Meanwhile 
Conde1  had  diplomatically  set  several  hundred 
leagues  between  the  lovers,  by  pairing  off  Madame 
de  Longueville  with  her  husband  to  Miinster, 
while  he  caused  the  Due  de  la  Rochefoucauld  to 
be  summoned  to  his  duties  as  governor  of  Poitou. 
Independently  of  the  ardent  but  brief  attachment 
of  Rocroi  and  Nordlingen  days,  the  Due  de 
Conde"  entertained  sterling  admiration  and  esteem 
for  the  qualities  of  Ninon,  and  their  friendship 
remained  sincere  through  life. 

For  three  years  Ninon  came  to  Paris  only  at 
intervals ;  she  remained  in  the  Vexin,  with  the 
erratic  Marquis  de  Villarceaux  for  her  companion. 
Of  a  furiously  jealous  nature  in  regard  to  the  object 
of  his  affectionate  consideration,  he  permitted 
himself  a  wide  range.  The  lawful  wife  he  owned 
was,  not  unnaturally,  jealous  of  Ninon,  and  made  her 
a  constant  subject  of  contention  between  them. 
One  day  she  requested  the  tutor  of  her  little 
son  to  examine  him  before  some  company  she  was 
entertaining,  upon  his  recent  classical  studies. 
"  Quern  habuit  successorum  Bellus,  rex  Assyriorum  ?  " 
("  Who  succeeded  Belus,  King  of  the  Assyrians?") 
inquired  the  tutor,  who  was  no  less  a  person  than 
the  Abbe"  Scarron. 

" Ninum"  replied  the  little  boy. 

The  word,  so  absolutely  resembling  Ninon, 
threw  Madame  de  Villarceaux  into  a  furious  rage. 
Scarron  vainly  endeavoured  to  explain  and  justify 
himself.  She  would  not  listen.  The  answer,  she  said, 
was  quite  enough  for  her;  and  Scarron  was  dis- 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  109 

missed.  It  was  a  cruel  accident  for  him,  crippled 
as  he  was,  so  utterly  as  not  to  be  able  to  stir  from 
his  wheel-chair.  Bodily  "  a  wretched  log,"  as  he 
called  himself,  intellectually  more  brilliant  than 
ever,  and  in  a  human  sense,  ever  the  same  kindly, 
generous  epicurean  philosopher  as  of  old,  "always" 
as  he  said,  "  unfortunate."  On  the  top  of  all  his 
other  troubles  he  had  fallen  in  love.  Alas !  for 
the  poor  prisoner  of  that  wheeled-chair,  the  help- 
less wreck  of  the  ex-canon  !  Ninon  found  refuge 
in  silence  as  she  stood  before  him  where  he 
had  been  carried  in  from  his  coach.  It  was  long 
since  they  had  met,  and  her  heart  was  full  of  pity. 
The  object  of  his  affection,  Scarron  went  on  to  tell 
her,  was  one  Franchise  d'Aubigne",  a  native  of  Niort. 
"Ah,  d'Aubigne,"  interrupted  Ninon  at  last.  "A 
Protestant  then  ?  "  A  Calvinist  by  birth,  went  on 
Scarron,  and  reared  in  that  teaching  by  an  aunt 
who  had  adopted  her  on  the  death  of  her  parents ; 
but  the  aunt  died,  and  then  a  lady,  Madame  de 
Neuillan,  a  friend  of  the  Marquise  de  Villarceaux,  had 
taken  her  in  hand.  It  was  a  misuse  of  words  to  call 
it  befriending.  It  was  in  this  way  Scarron  had  seen 
her,  a  charmingly  pretty  girl  of  about  seventeen. 

This  Countess  de  Neuillan  was  a  gorgon  of 
virtue  and  principle,  and,  as  also  a  bigot  of  a 
Catholic,  she  had  compelled  Franchise  to  become 
one.  In  return  for  all  her  tender  care,  Madame 
de  Neuillan  imposed  the  most  menial  duties  on 
the  young  girl,  who  was  of  angelic  disposition  as 
well  as  beautiful.  Her  father  had  been  the  son  of 
the  friend  of  Henri  IV.  More  or  less  worthy  as 


no  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

he    might    be    represented — de    mortuis   nil    nisi 

bonum — he  had  died  in  prison,  guilty  of  no  other 

crimes,  perhaps,  than  being  a  Protestant ;  and  so  his 

two  children  had  been  left  cast  in  indigence  upon 

the  world.     The  lot  of  Frangoise  in  the  house  of 

Madame  de  Neuillan  was  deplorable,  and  Scarron, 

as  well  as  some  other  friends,  had  advised  her  to 

leave  her,  and  get  her  living  by  the  work  of  her 

hands  sooner  than  remain  in  such  dependence  ;  and 

for  twelve  months  past  she  had  lodged  in  a  little 

street  of  a  neighbouring  faubourg,  with  her  brother,  a 

ne'er-do-well ;  but  still  her  brother;  and  her  goodness 

to  him  was  the  only  fault  Scarron  had  to  find  in  the 

adorable  Frangoise.     And  Ninon's  generous  heart 

overflowed  with  sympathy  for  the  young  girl,  and 

she  took  her  to  her  own  home,  and  they  were  warm 

friends,  living  in  the  closest  ties  of  affection  ;  and 

ere  long  the  sweet,  modest,  gentle  girl  repaid  the  kind 

friend's  goodness  by  winning  her  lover,  Monsieur  de 

Villarceaux,  away  from  her,  and  Ninon,  who  was 

sincerely  attached  to  him,  felt   the   sting  acutely. 

She  taxed   Franchise  with   the  attempt,  which  was 

quite  successful,  and  refused  to  listen  to  any  denial 

or  excuse,  merely  saying  that  they  would  have  the 

field  quite  free  to  themselves,  as  she  was  leaving  on 

the   following   day  for   Naples.     And   thither   she 

went,  taking  the  sea-journey  from  Marseilles.     For 

travelling  companion,  she  had  the  Chevalier  de  Meri. 

This  gentleman  who  had  been  one  of  the  guests  of 

Monsieur  Vicariville  had  a  sister  who  was  married 

to  a  Spanish  Grandee,  to  whom  was  promised  the 

viceroyalty  of  Naples. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  in 

Monsieur  de  Meri  was  in  every  way  far  more 
desirable  as  a  companion  than  the  man  she  had 
left  in  the  company  of  Franchise,  to  whom  she  also 
entrusted  the  menage  in  the  rue  des  Tournelles, 
only  making  the  condition  that  she  and  Villarceaux 
should  hold  their  sweet  converse  exclusively  in  the 
"  Yellow  Chamber,"  which  was  the  most  retired  of 
the  rooms.  Finding  this  a  little  restrictive  however, 
they  betook  themselves  to  Brie-Comte  Robert,  where 
they  spent  a  fortnight  at  the  house  of  a  cousin  of 
the  marquis,  who  possessed  the  gift  of  a  still  tongue. 
Arrived  in  Naples,  Ninon  established  herself 
with  her  faithful  servant  Perrote,  who  had  attended 
her  en  courrier,  in  a  small  house  near  the  park,  and 
yielded  herself  up  to  the  charm  of  the  place.  "  See 
Naples  and  die,"  but  it  thrilled  Ninon  with  new 
life.  The  sunshine,  the  colour,  the  curious  mingling 
of  indolence  and  the  activity  of  a  seaport,  the 
cloudless  azure  overhead,  the  clear  blue  depths  of 
the  bay,  the  islands  washed  by  the  sparkling 
waters,  Vesuvius,  calm  and  treacherous,  enchanted 
her.  She  lost  no  time  in  providing  herself  with  a 
Neapolitan  costume,  in  which  she  roved  about  as  the 
will  took  her.  Nothing  was  more  likely  than  that 
when  she  chartered  a  barque  to  sail  away  and  dream 
her  dreams,  rocked  by  the  gentle  waves  of  that 
inland  sea,  it  should  have  been  guided  by  a  young 
fisherman  of  some  five-and-twenty  years  old.  His 
handsome  features  wore  a  nobility  of  expression  and 
energy — a  picture  worthy  of  a  painter's  brush,  with 
his  sunburnt  skin  and  flashing  dark  eyes,  and  dark 
locks,  surmounted  by  his  red  woollen  cap.  Thisyoung 


H2  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

fisherman,  who  told  Ninon,  when  she  asked  him  his 
name,  that  it  was  Aniello — Tommaso  Aniello — but 
the  people  and  his  comrades  called  him  "  Masaniello." 
For  ever  a  favourite  with  them,  they  were  in  those  early 
July  days  of  that  year  of  1647  beginning  to  idolise  him 
as  their  champion  and  leader  in  the  revolt  against 
the  oppression  and  robbery  of  their  Spanish  masters. 
The  viceroyalty  of  Naples  equalled  in  pomp  and 
extravagance  the  Court  of  Madrid,  and  what  wealth 
was  found  more  than  could  be  used  for  Naples,  was 
shipped  off  and  transported  to  Spain,  leaving  the 
Neapolitans  crushed  with  poverty,  neglected  and 
groaning  under  the  haughty  tyranny  of  the  delegated 
power.  Recently  the  viceroy  of  the  Spanish  king, 
Philip  IV.,  the  Duke  of  Arcos,  who  wanted  more  and 
more  funds  for  carrying  on  the  war  with  France,  had 
bethought  himself  of  levying  a  tax  on  fruit  and 
vegetables.  It  was  but  Mazarin's  Toise*  over 
again,  ever  for  Jacques  Bonhomme  and  his  Italian 
equivalent  to  keep  things  spinning  for  the  honour 
and  glory  of  a  spendthrift  nobility,  while  they 
robbed  the  country  of  their  young  men,  to  draft  them 
as  soldiers  to  Spain.  In  the  course  of  a  century, 
millions  of  ducats  had  been  paid  from  one  source 
alone,  into  the  Spanish  treasury.  These  wrongs 
were  stirring  the  indignation  of  the  Neapolitans 
to  seething  heat,  and  to  the  people  Aniello  spoke 
aloud  and  with  fiery  eloquence  of  the  iniquities.  To 
add  fuel  to  the  flame,  his  young  wife — or,  as  other 
chroniclers  tell,  his  deaf  and  dumb  sister,  living  at 
Portici — had  been  arrested  and  cast  into  prison  for 
having  in  her  possession  some  contraband  flour,  and 


To  face  page  112. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  113 

Aniello  had  been  made  to  pay  to  obtain  her  release. 
A  disturbance  in  the  market-place  over  the  sale  of  a 
basket  of  figs,  upon  which  the  unfortunate  man  who 
had  brought  them  for  sale,  was  finally  required  to 
pay  the  imposts,  ignited  the  smouldering  rage  of 
the  oppressed  people,  and  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of 
thousands  of  men,  women  and  boys,  who  wrought 
destruction  on  every  side  as  they  went,  Masaniello 
forced  a  way  into  the  viceroy's  palace.  There  with 
the  help  and  counsel  of  the  Archbishop  of  Naples,  a 
man  popular  and  respected,  the  demand  for  exemp- 
tion of  taxation  on  all  articles  of  food  was  accorded. 
The  triumph  of  Masaniello  was  complete  ;  but  the 
excitement  and  the  adulation  not  alone  of  the  people 
for  whose  rights  he  had  so  successfully  striven,  but  of 
the  viceroy  himself,  proved  too  much  for  him.  His 
mind  gave  way,  he  began  to  act  like  a  maniac  ;  he 
complained  of  a  sensation  like  boiling  lead  in  his 
head.  Some  of  the  wretched  dregs  of  the  people 
he  had  so  nobly  served,  took  umbrage  at  his  wild 
conduct,  and  the  shot  from  an  arquebuse,  in  the 
hands  of  one  of  the  mob  thus  turned  on  him, 
pierced  him  to  the  heart.  There  was  nothing  left 
but  to  regret  the  heroic  man,  and  he  was  laid  to  rest, 
after  his  young  life's  fitful  fever,  with  great  pomp  and 
ceremony  in  the  church  of  S.  Maria  del  Carmine. 

No  mere  demagogue  was  Masaniello;  but  a 
man  of  noble  patriotic  aspiration,  victim  of  his 
own  passionate  ardour  for  a  great  cause.  Perhaps 
as  a  soldier  he  would  have  risen  to  highest  rank 
and  glory ;  but  Masaniello  would  be  no  soldier  for 
Spain,  and  in  this  resolution  he  had  been  streng- 


H 


H4  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

thened,  if  that  were  needed,  by  Salvator  Rosa,  the 
painter,  who  was  one  of  his  friends,  and  by  the 
Due  de  Guise,  who  swore  to  avenge  the  death  of 
Masaniello,  and  kept  his  word. 

Not  content  with  her  Neapolitan  bodice  and  skirt, 
Ninon  attired  herself  in  a  fisherman's  garb,  with  the 
object  of  mingling  in  the  fray  of  the  Neapolitan  up- 
rising, and  she  witnessed  the  sharp,  swift  close  of 
Masaniello's  little  day  of  triumph.  But  she  left 
Naples  almost  immediately  after,  experiencing 
various  adventures  of  a  sort  which  she  found 
sufficiently  agreeable  to  detain  her  still  some  five 
or  six  months  from  Paris,  meeting  on  her  way  old 
friends  and  new,  among  them  her  agreeable  ac- 
quaintance, the  Chevalier  Orondate,  who  was  bound 
for  Naples,  as  legate  of  Mazarin,  who  was  anxious 
for  acquaintance  with  every  detail  of  the  revolt. 
There  was  little  Ninon  could  not  tell  him  of  this. 
She  had  been  a  close  and  intelligent  observer.  It 
was  more  likely  that  Orondate  could  get  accurate 
information  from  one  who  had  witnessed  the  whole 
tmeute,  than  any  gathering  up  of  particulars,  now 
comparative  tranquillity  had  been  restored  in  the  city. 
Therefore  the  Chevalier  did  not  go  on  to  Naples,  but 
paired  off  with  Ninon  for  a  while  into  a  studious  se- 
clusion at  Lyons,  during  which  she  furnished  him 
with  a  vivid  narrative  of  the  disturbance  itself,  and 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  people  had  been  relieved 
of  their  cruel  burden.  It  contained  the  elements  of 
a  good  object-lesson  for  Mazarin  and  for  the  Court 
party,  now  engaged  in  bitter  contention  with  the 
Parliament,  for  the  storm  of  the  Fronde  had  broken. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Fronde  and  Mazarin — A  Brittany  Manor — Borrowed  Locks 
—The  Flight  to  St  Germains— A  Gouty  Duke— Across  the 
Channel — The  Evil  Genius — The  Scaffold  at  Whitehall — 
Starving  in  the  Louvre  —  The  Mazarinade  —  Poverty  — 
Condi's  Indignation — The  Cannon  of  the  Bastille — The 
Young  King. 

"  VIVE  Mazarin ! — Vive  la  Fronde  !  "  It  was  to  these 
cries,  resounding  on  all  sides,  that  Ninon  returned  to 
her  home,  and  she  found  it  all  very  disconcerting  ;  if 
only  on  the  score  of  the  havoc  the  long  contention 
between  the  Court  and  the  Parliament  was  to  make 
in  the  society  of  her  world.  The  battle  of  belles- 
lettres  and  of  art  has  poor  chance  in  the  field  with 
political  turmoil  that  brings  back  the  dark  ages 
when  violence  was  the  only  power. 

Ninon  had  but  left  one  discontented  country  to 
find  another,  her  own,  equally  discontented  and 
suffering  under  oppressive  taxation ;  while  across 
the  Channel,  in  England,  civil  war  was  raging  to 
the  same  watchwords,  more  fiercely  than  on  the 
Continent,  for  all  the  evil  might  be  less  aggressive. 

It  had  been  well  enough  for  a  while  for  the 
crafty  Italian  prime  minister  to  try  and  keep  the 
minds  of  the  courtier  and  the  more  educated  class 
of  the  people  otherwise  employed ;  but  he  had 
remained  blind,  or  had  chosen  to  seem  so,  to  the 
fact  that  these  were  also  Frenchmen,  and  not  all, 
by  a  great  many,  mere  butterflies  and  triflers. 


n6  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Balls  and  festivities  did  not  bound  the  range  of 
vision  of  many  a  nobly-born  gentleman,  nor  of  the 
statesmen  and  chiefs  in  Parliament ;  and  while  some 
sided  in  the  dispute  with  the  queen  and  Mazarin, 
there  were  as  many  to  oppose.  "  A-bas  Mazarin  ! 
A-bas  la  Fronde  ! "  and  the  cries  were  not  to  be 
silenced — though  nothing,  it  was  conceived  at  the 
outset,  would  be  easier.  The  Fronde — the  term 
was  but  a  jesting  one,  arising  from  the  Parliament 
prohibiting  under  all  sorts  of  condign  punishment 
the  schoolboy  game  of  stone-slinging  in  the  ditches 
under  the  walls  of  Paris,  and  then  it  was  the  witty 
Barillon  improvised  his  couplet — 

"  A  Frondy  wind  this  morning  arose, 
I  hope  it  won't  bite  poor  Mazarin's  nose  " ; 

and  from  St  Antoine  to  St  Denis,  from  Mont- 
martre  to  St  Germain,  before  night  that  rhyme  was 
on  the  tip  of  every  tongue. 

The  rough  discords,  the  coarse  ugly  voice  of 
faction  soon  rendered  Paris  no  place  for  the  Graces. 
It  had  become  dangerous  for  women  who  were  not 
amazons  of  politics  to  walk  out  alone ;  and  Ninon 
was  forced  to  accept  the  escort  of  her  cavaliers, 
among  whom  were  two  specially  favoured  —  the 
young  Marquis  de  Sevigne,  son  of  the  incompar- 
able queen  of  Letter- writing,  and  of  his  father,  the 
Mare*chal  who  had  worshipped,  ten  years  before,  at 
Ninon's  shrine,  and  the  Marquis  de  Gersay,  captain 
of  the  Queen's  Guards.  For  refusing  to  obey  the 
issued  order  of  arrest  of  the  two  Parliament  coun- 
sellors, Blancmenil  and  Broussel,  de  Gersay  had 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  117 

been  deprived  of  his  place,  and  disgraced.  Paris 
was  therefore  neither  any  place  for  him,  and  Ninon 
and  he  found  refuge  together  in  his  Brittany  home, 
where  they  spent  ten  months  together  ;  at  about  the 
end  of  which  time  Ninon  became  the  mother  of  a 
little  son,  and  the  sojourn  in  Brittany  was  one  of 
happiness  and  tranquillity  among  the  patient  hard- 
working peasantry  of  the  district  surrounding  the 
old  manor-house.  Only  one  cloud  darkened  Ninon's 
content,  and  her  dismay  was  not  unnaturally  con- 
siderable ;  for  her  lovely  hair  had  begun  rapidly 
to  come  off,  so  entirely,  as  to  force  a  wig  upon 
her  beautiful  head,  which  the  Nantes  perruquier 
bungled  so  abominably,  that  the  curls  and  chignon 
asserted  their  falseness  glaringly  enough  to  extract 
the  sarcastic  comments  of  a  lady  Ninon  believed  to 
be  jealous  of  her,  as  one  disappointed  of  becoming 
the  wife  of  de  Gersay.  "You  have  very  charming 
hair,  madame,"  said  the  lady ;  "  it  must  have  cost 
you  at  least  six  livres."  "Just  so,"  said  Ninon; 
"  but  you  must  have  paid  more  for  yours,  madame ; 
since  even  still  it  is  rather  thin." 

The  news  reaching  them  from  Paris  remained 
disturbing.  The  queen  and  Mazarin  had  been 
forced  to  fly  to  St  Germains  with  the  little  Louis, 
while  Conde,  returned  victorious  from  Sens,  laid 
siege  with  his  whole  army  to  Paris  in  the  cause 
of  the  queen ;  but  the  unpopularity  of  Mazarin, 
amounting  to  bitter  hatred,  weakened  the  influence 
of  the  Court.  A  large  number  of  the  nobility  joined 
the  Fronde  party,  of  whom  de  Retz  was  one  of  the 
foremost,  while  the  once  delicate  and  retiring 


u8  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Duchesse  de  Longueville  was  the  inspiration  and 
ardent  leader  of  the  Frondeurs.  Where  she  was, 
de  la  Rochefoucauld  could  but  follow,  though  his 
political  views  had  in  themselves  no  great  depth. 
His  mistress's  will  was  his  ;  to  gain  her  favour,  he 
said,  to  please  her  beautiful  eyes,  he  "made  war 
upon  kings :  had  need  been,  he  would  have  made 
it  on  the  gods." 

Amidst  all  the  rancour  and  uproar  was  mixed  a 
vast  amount  of  frivolity  and  of  mockery  of  serious 
warfare.  The  generals  led  soldiers,  scented  and 
lace  and  ribbon-bedecked,  to  parade ;  and  the 
women  looked  on,  and  applauded  or  jeered  at  them, 
as  the  fancy  took  them. 

"  Brave  de  Bouillon's  got  the  gout, 
Oh,  he  is  lion-brave  no  doubt, 
But  when  there's  a  troop  to  put  to  rout, 
And  Conde*'s  men  he  has  to  flout, 
Then  brave  de  Bouillon's  got  the  gout." 

This  favourite  piece  of  Frondeur  doggerel  was 
for  ever  assailing  the  ears  of  Monseigneur  le  Due 
de  Bouillon,  when  Conde*  changed  sides,  influenced 
strongly  by  his  sister,  as  well  as  by  his  own  con- 
victions. The  anger  of  the  queen  at  his  secession 
was  terrible.  She  spared  no  one  who  had  been  ever 
implicated  in  the  Fronde  side  of  the  quarrel,  and 
de  Gersay  was  one  of  the  first  to  be  avenged 
upon.  But  warning  came  in  time,  and  the  con- 
tingent of  musketeers  despatched  to  arrest  him, 
arrived  too  late  at  the  old  Brittany  manor-house. 
Ninon  and  de  Gersay  had  already  fled  to  St  Malo, 
where  they  set  sail  for  England,  of  whose  shores 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  119 

they  were  already  well  in  sight,  when  the  soldiers 
reached  the  chateau. 

The  imbroglio  in  Paris  had  now  touched 
seething-point.  The  queen  and  Mazarin  decided 
to  blockade  the  city,  and  to  obtain  submission  by 
reducing  the  inhabitants  to  starvation ;  but  the 
firmness  of  President  Mole"  and  of  the  advocate 
Talon,  strong  in  their  principles  of  defence  of  the 
rights  of  all  the  community  in  the  face  of  royal 
despotism,  saved  the  situation.  Mazarin  sent  to 
the  Parliament  a  lettre-de-cachet  for  the  imprison- 
ment of  the  princes  and  leaders  of  the  Fronde  :  the 
Parliament  retorted  by  denouncing  Mazarin  as  an 
enemy  of  the  king  and  the  State,  and  a  dis- 
turber of  the  public  peace,  and  ordered  him 
to  quit  the  country  within  a  week's  time.  For  the 
unfortunate  thousands,  weary  of  the  conflict,  asking 
only  for  peace  and  quietness,  it  was  misery  and 
confusion  confounded,  and  they  were  thankful 
when  a  truce  was  patched  up.  But  it  was  a  mockery, 
for  while  the  Parliament  retained  its  right  to 
assemble,  the  queen  retained  her  prime  minister, 
detested  by  most,  mistrusted  even  by  more.1 

And  meanwhile  the  dark  clouds  of  anarchy 
and  bitter  contention  brooding  over  France  had 
blackened  and  burst  over  England  into  the  storm 
of  the  tragedy  of  the  3oth  of  January,  which  saw 

1  "Est  animal  rubrum,  callidum,  rapax,  et  vorax  omnium 
benificiorum.  Mazarin  is  a  misfortune  to  the  queen,  her  evil 
genius,  consequently  ours.  I  hate  him  as  I  do  the  devil,  and 
hold  him  for  what  he  is,  morus  nebuk,  a  creature  destitute  of 
honour,  a  mime  in  a  red  hat,  and  a  long-robed  charlatan." 

GUY  PATIN. 


120  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

the  death  of  King  Charles  I.  by  the  headsman's 
axe  at  Whitehall. 

Who  that  headsman  was,  and  what  of  the  real 
truth  and  trustworthy  detail  of  the  king's  execution, 
who  shall  say?  Romance,  in  which  reality  may 
lie  concealed,  clings  to  that  last  scene,  in  which 
only  it  is  certain  that  Charles  Stuart  bore  himself 
for  the  king  he  was,  and  that  while  thousands  of 
loyal  subjects  wept  that  day  for  the  victim  of 
Cromwell's  ambition,  the  regret  in  France  was 
deep  and  far-reaching. 

Ninon  was  in  London,  a  refugee,  at  the  time, 
and  it  is  possible  as  one  authority  avers,  that  she 
was  present  with  de  Gersay/and  obtained  from  His 
Majesty  a  lock  of  his  hair  as  he  stood  upon  the 
scaffold,  and  that  at  a  later  time  she  took  this  to 
the  queen,  Henrietta  Maria.  One  has  to  bear  in 
mind  that  the  "Musketeer"  heroes  immortalised 
by  Dumas,  also  stood  beneath  the  scaffold  on  that 
sad  occasion.  And  why  not  ?  Royalist  sympathy  in 
France  with  our  Cromwell-ridden  country  was 
strong.  That  Anne  of  Austria  felt  little  of  it  for 
her  unhappy  sister-in-law,  is  self-evident,  since 
Henrietta,  lodged  in  the  Louvre  with  her  children, 
found  shelter  indeed,  but  cold  comfort  enough 
otherwise,  being  found,  at  last,  fireless  and  almost 
foodless ;  and  it  was  only  when  their  destitute 
condition  was  represented  to  Mazarin,  that  he 
instantly  sent  her  a  good  sum  of  money  and  other 
required  assistance. 

Buckingham's  adored  divinity,  possibly,  had  all 
her  accredited  beauty,  her  portraits  notwithstanding, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  121 

but  it  is  difficult  to  trace  much  milk  of  human  kind- 
ness or  warmth  of  heart  in  "  Dame  Anne  "  through- 
out her  career.  Her  Spanish  pride  and  dignity 
could  have  been  scantily  tempered  with  the  high, 
generous  characteristics  of  her  compatriots.  Had 
the  troubles  environing  her  engrossed  her,  the  case 
might  have  seemed  in  a  measure  excusable ;  but  in 
the  face  of  the  storm  of  the  Frondy  wind,  or  perhaps 
because  of  it,  the  balls  and  routs  and  love- 
intriguing,  and  the  rest,  were  carried  on  in  full 
rush  :  for  that  there  was  ever  ample  leisure. 

About  this  time  Scarron  wrote  his  Mazarinade, 
and  continued  to  be  in  love  with  his  Franchise, 
She  was  desperately  poor,  and  gained  scanty  sub- 
sistence by  needlework,  supplemented  by  what 
Scarron  earned  from  the  proceeds  of  his  writing, 
which  she  carried  in  MS.  for  him  to  and  fro  the 
printers.  The  Mazarinade  was  an  immense  suc- 
cess ;  but  the  author  gained  financially  less  than 
nothing  from  its  publication  ;  as  it  so  offended  the 
queen,  that  the  pension  she  had  granted  him  was 
withdrawn,  and  the  marriage  with  Fran9oise  his 
heart  was  set  upon  had  to  be  delayed.  She  had, 
however,  in  the  meantime,  consented  to  take  up 
her  abode  with  him,  and  they  were  happy. 

After  some  months'  sulking  away  in  various 
places,  the  Court  returned  to  Paris,  having  again 
patched  up  a  sort  of  reconciliation,  and  on  that  occa- 
sion Conde*  found  himself  in  the  same  coach  with 
Mazarin.  The  drive  could  scarcely  have  been  an 
enjoyable  one,  and  the  hollow  entente  cordiale  only 
gave  the  Frondeurs  offence.  It  lasted  a  very  little 


122  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

time,  for  soon  after,  when  Mazarin  was  attempting 
to  arrange  a  marriage  of  one  of  his  nieces  with  a 
close  connexion  of  de  Condi's,  the  proud  prince 
said  furiously  that  at  the  best  "they  were  only  fit 
to  be  the  wives  of  Mazarin's  valets.  Go  and  tell 
him  so,"  added  Conde*  ;  "and  if  he  is  angry,  let  his 
captain  of  the  guards  bring  him  by  his  beard  to  the 
H6tel  de  Conde." 

The  cardinal  swallowed  the  insult  and  continued 
to  offer  high  favours  to  Conde,  who  refused  them 
all,  and  in  a  little  time  the  fury  of  the  dispute 
broke  out  again  more  fiercely  than  ever.  Conde, 
strong  in  the  service  he  had  rendered  his  country, 
grew  insupportably  arrogant,  and,  not  content  with 
insulting  Mazarin,  was  constantly  offending  the 
queen.  This  ended  in  the  arrest  of  himself,  his 
brother,  the  Prince  de  Conti,  and  the  Due  de 
Longueville,  and  they  were  imprisoned  at  Havre. 
Madame  de  Longueville  thereupon  hastened  to 
Normandy,  where  she  tried  to  create  an  uprising 
for  her  party,  but  failing  in  this  she  allied  herself 
with  Turenne,  then  fighting  for  Spain.  A  new 
party  was  now  formed,  headed  by  the  princes,  and 
called  the  "  Little  Fronde  " — and  big  and  little  joined 
force  against  Mazarin,  and  the  cardinal,  bending 
at  last  to  the  storm,  went  to  Havre  and  set  Conde" 
and  the  other  princes  free.  But  this  did  not  satisfy 
the  demands  of  the  Fronde,  and  he  finally  quitted 
France  and  took  up  his  abode  in  Cologne,  still  con- 
triving to  pull  the  strings  of  the  French  Court  party. 

The  following  year  he  was  back  again,  taking 
advantage   of  the   quarrel    within   quarrel    of  the 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  123 

leaders  of  both  parties.  Memorable  among  these 
fearful  frays  was  that  encounter  in  the  Faubourg  St 
Antoine,  when  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier,  "  La 
Grande  Mademoiselle,"  the  brave  daughter  of  the 
pusillanimous  Gaston  of  Orleans,  mounted  to  the 
towers  of  the  Bastille,  and  ordered  the  troops  of  the 
king  to  fire  upon  the  troops  of  Conde*,  now  a  leader 
of  the  Fronde.  It  was  a  splendid  victory  as  far  as 
it  went ;  but  it  only  strengthened  the  hatred  against 
the  cardinal.  Anarchy  and  terror  were  at  their 
height,  and  to  be  accused  of  Mazarinism  was  to 
come  in  fear  of  death.  Yet,  for  the  third  time, 
and  the  triumphant  last,  Mazarin  returned,  to  be 
welcomed  by  the  fickle  people,  to  remain  at  the 
head  of  the  government  till  he  died,  after  having 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  his  five  nieces  all 
brilliantly  married,  and  supremely  content  with  the 
result  of  his  training  of  the  young  king,  which  was 
to  prove  so  disastrous  at  a  later  time.  It  was  a 
training  of  utter  neglect  of  everything  but  the 
knowledge  of  his  own  importance,  and  that  did  not 
need  impressing  upon  the  proud,  dominating  nature 
of  Louis  XIV.  Said  Mazarin  one  day — "  He  has 
stuff  in  him  to  make  four  kings." 


CHAPTER   XI 

Invalids  in  the  rue  des  Tournelles — On  the  Battlements — "  La 
Grande  Mademoiselle  " — Casting  Lots — The  Sacrifice — The 
Bag  of  Gold— "  Get  Thee  to  a  Convent  "—The  Battle  of  the 
Sonnets — A  Curl-paper — The  Triumph  and  Defeat  of 
Bacchus — A  Secret  Door — Cross  Questions  and  Crooked 
Answers — The  Youthful  Autocrat. 

SEVERAL  of  the  severely  wounded,  under  the  firing 
of  the  Bastille  cannon,  were  carried  by  Ninon's 
desire  into  her  house  in  the  rue  des  Tournelles. 
Among  these  were  the  Comte  de  Fiesque  and  the 
Abbe*  d'Effiat.  Both  of  these  gentlemen  were  so 
cruelly  weakened  by  loss  of  blood,  that  it  was  long 
before  either  of  them  was  able  to  be  removed. 
Fiesque  had  the  misfortune  to  be  married  to  an 
exceedingly  disagreeable  woman,  cross  and  ill- 
tempered  with  everybody,  herself  included.  There 
was  no  longer  any  affection  between  her  and  her 
husband,  and  as  he  made  no  pretence  of  being  true 
to  her,  it  was  little  less  than  a  matter  of  course 
that  he  should  find  himself  fascinated  by  the  charms 
of  his  kind  nurse  and  hostess,  while  the  abb6  was  no 
less  enthralled  ;  and  Ninon,  weary  of  the  Fronde— 
as  in  fact  who  was  not? — resumed  the  old  society 
ways  of  the  rue  des  Tournelles. 

It  was  Gondi,  the  bishop's  coadjutor,  who  laid 
to  his  singular  half-devout,  half-profligate  soul  the 
flattering  unction  that  he  was  the  author  of  the 
restored  peace ;  and  on  the  strength  of  it,  he 

124 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  125 

obtained  the  red  hat  he  so  ardently  coveted,  and 
became  the  Cardinal  de  Retz,  so  renowned  for  his 
romantic  and  adventurous  career  ;  but  he  did  not 
escape  the  vengeance  of  his  mortal  foe  Mazarin, 
who  arrested  him  and  confined  him  in  the  castle  of 
Vincennes.  Thence  de  Retz  obtained  removal  to 
the  Chateau  of  Nantes,  a  stronghold  safely  walled 
and  moated  round  about,  which  appertained  to  his 
family.  Some  chroniclers  credit  it  with  being  the 
scene  of  the  crimes  of  the  terrible  Bluebeard, 
Gilles  de  Retz,  Marquis  de  Laval.  It  is  almost  as 
stern  and  forbidding-looking  as  "  Black  Angers," 
and  with  as  long  a  record  of  interest.  Its  massive 
walls  were  first  built  into  the  bed  of  the  deep- 
flowing  Loire  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  its 
frowning  towers  vividly  conjure  to  the  mind's  eye 
the  picture  of  Sister  Anne  watching  from  their 
summits  for  ''anybody  coming." 

Its  bastions  and  walls,  and  slate  and  granite 
round-towers  bear  the  cross  of  Lorraine,  carved  on 
them  during  the  wars  of  the  League.  Anne  of 
Brittany,  born  within  its  walls,  is  said  to  have  been 
married  for  the  second  time  in  its  chapel — now  a 
powder  magazine — and  here,  too,  Henri  IV.  signed 
the  Edict  of  Nantes,  which  gave  to  the  Huguenots 
their  religious  freedom,  to  be  so  shamefully  with- 
drawn at  the  instigation  of  the  amiable  Franchise 
d'Aubigne". 

One  night,  while  de  Retz  was  languishing  in  an 
upper  chamber  of  the  Mercceur  tower  of  this 
prison  of  his,  a  boat  lay  moored  beneath  in  the 
shadow,  and  de  Retz  contrived  that  the  guard  and 


i26  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

sentry  of  the  castle  should  all  be  furnished  with 
ample  means  for  a  carouse.  It  was  tempting,  and 
not  one  declined  the  generosity  of  his  good-natured 
Eminence.  The  revellers  grew  sleepy  and  dazed  ; 
too  entirely  so  to  do  more  than  gaze  lack- 
lustrely  up  at  their  prisoner's  red  cloak  and 
hat,  blowing  about  in  the  evening  breeze  upon 
the  upper  walls  of  the  battlements  which  he  was 
permitted  to  pace  for  exercise.  De  Retz,  mean- 
while, who  had  slipped  out  of  his  vesture,  and  hung 
it  there,  was  dropping  rapidly  down  by  a  rope 
moored  fast  to  the  stanchions  of  his  loophole 
casement  in  the  Tour  de  Mercceur,  into  the  boat 
which  was  then  sped  away  to  the  shore  by  the  oars 
of  one  of  his  trusty  waiting  friends,  of  whom  he  had 
scores ;  and  in  this  way  gained  the  spot  upon  the 
banks  where  a  horse  was  waiting  ready  saddled. 
Springing  up,  de  Retz  bounded  away  on  his  steed, 
which  in  very  short  time  flung  him,  and  his  shoulder 
was  dislocated  ;  but,  the  pain  notwithstanding,  he 
mounted  again,  and  then  reaching  the  shelter  of 
the  Chateau  de  Beaupre"au,  he  made  his  way  through 
Spain  to  Rome  and  perfect  safety,  until  by  resign- 
ing his  archbishopric,  which  through  the  death  of 
his  uncle  had  become  his,  he  was  reconciled  to  tlie 
governing  powers  of  France  and  returned  to  Paris. 
Of  the  two  most  prominent  leaders  in  the 
long  civil  contention,  Conde  retired  to  Spain,  and 
Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier  wandered  about  from 
chateau  to  chateau  in  Normandy,  forbidden  to 
come  to  Paris  for  several  years.  All  idea  of  her 
marriage  with  Louis  XIV.  was  extinguished  on  the 


To  face  page   127. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  127 

day  she  fired  upon  the  royal  troops.  "  Very  good  !  " 
exclaimed  Mazarin  then,  "she  has  killed  her 
husband." 

Something  less  than  a  year  later  a  little  daughter 
>vas  born  to  Ninon.  There  was  so  much  doubt 
concerning  its  paternity,  that  the  Comte  de  Fiesque 
and  the  Abbe*  d'Effiat  had  no  choice  but  to  make 
a  throw  of  the  dice  for  the  rightful  claim  on  it,  and 
de  Fiesque  being  the  winner,  subsequently  had  the 
child  educated  and  reared  at  his  own  cost,  insisting 
on  this  in  despite  of  Ninon  wishing  to  keep  it 
under  her  own  care.  But  towards  herself  the  attach- 
ment of  the  count  rapidly  cooled.  To  bring  him 
back  to  her  feet,  she  conceived  the  ruse  of  cutting 
off  her  hair,  the  real  locks,  for  these  having  grown 
again.  There  was,  however,  something  in  this  of 
the  virtue  of  necessity  ;  as  it  was  again  threatening 
to  become  scanty — and  sending  them  by  a  servant 
to  the  count,  it  exercised  its  intended  effect ;  as 
he  regarded  it  as  a  touching  sacrifice,  and  Fiesque 
was  again  at  her  feet,  penitent,  and  tender  as  ever. 
But  Ninon,  thus  triumphing,  dismissed  him  from  the 
old  position,  and  relegated  him  to  the  ranks  only  of 
friendship.  Once  more  the  hair  of  Ninon  began  to 
grow  luxuriantly,  and  she  devised  a  fashion  of 
arranging  it  that  was  so  charming,  as  to  find  the 
sincere  flattery  of  imitation — "Se  coiffer  a  la  Ninon  " 
— became  the  rage. 

The  wife  of  de  Fiesque  wrote  Ninon  a  terrible 
letter  of  reproach  for  her  intrigue  with  the  count.  It 
would  seem  to  have  been  prompted  simply  by 
revenge,  as  the  lady  made  no  pretence  of  affection 


128  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

for  her  husband  ;  but  the  fear  of  entailing  injury  to 
the  child,  strongly  influenced  Ninon  to  desire  to  have 
it  in  her  own  care.  The  count,  however,  had  left 
the  country  for  Spain,  and  she  had  difficulty  in  dis- 
covering with  whom  the  poor  babe  had  been  placed. 
She  was,  moreover,  moving  at  that  time  in  one  of 
her  whirling  rounds  of  gaiety,  and  of  a  thoughtless 
folly,  that  at  a  later  day  brought  its  sincere  regrets  ; 
and  she  abandoned  the  search,  and  followed  on  by 
the  old  ways,  bestowing  her  smiles  chiefly  on  the 
Comte  de  Miossens,  who  had  been  distinguishing 
himself  greatly  under  Maurice  of  Orange. 

An  old  friend,  Monsieur  de  Gourville — who,  as 
a  warm  partisan  of  the  Due  de  Conde"  and  the 
Duchesse  de  Longueville,  had  remained  away  from 
Paris  for  a  long  time — returned  one  day  somewhat 
unexpectedly,  and  Ninon,  naturally  looking  for  a 
visit  from  him,  waited,  but  in  vain.  At  last  she 
wrote  him  a  little  note  to  ascertain  why  he  so  long 
delayed  his  coming,  and  so  much  the  more  since  he 
had  entrusted  to  her  keeping  a  large  sum  of  money 
in  gold  in  a  bag,  having  at  the  same  time  placed  as 
much  more  with  the  Grand  Penitentiary.  This 
individual  had  now,  he  told  de  Gourville,  given 
it  all  to  the  poor ;  as  he  supposed  that  had  been  as 
de  Gourville  had  intended,  but  it  had  not  been  the 
intention.  The  money  had  been  deposited  in  trust, 
said  de  Gourville,  who  added  he  should  have  liked 
to  strangle  the  Grand  Penitentiary. 

"And  did  you  have  the  fancy,"  said  Ninon, 
"that  I  had  distributed  the  sixty  thousand  livres 
also  in  good  works  ?  " 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  129 

"  No,  but  in  gowns  and  fal-lals.  At  least,  you 
would  own  to  the  truth  of  it,"  said  de  Gourville, 
"  and  I  like  that  better." 

But  Ninon  owned  to  no  such  thing.  She  bade 
de  Gourville  understand  her  rightly.  Light,  per- 
haps frivolous,  she  might  be,  but  she  prided  herself 
on  being  honest;  and  going  to  fetch  the  bag  of 
gold,  she  placed  it  before  him  with  the  fastenings 
intact. 

When  de  Gourville  mentioned  this  circumstance 
among  his  friends,  it  was  to  accord  Ninon  signal 
praise  ;  but  to  that  Ninon  utterly  disclaimed  right. 
There  was,  she  said,  no  merit  in  doing  one's  duty. 
Her  mode  of  life  was  the  result  of  the  philosophical 
system  she  had  adopted.  To  be  honest,  what  should 
one  be  else  ? 

And  for  her  mode  of  life,  it  had  none  of  the 
glaring  indifference  to  decent  outward  conduct, 
which  some  of  the  dames  of  society  indulged  in. 
Many  ladies  of  blameless  living  came  to  her  rb- 
unions.  Among  them  was  the  Comtesse  de  Choisy, 
lady  of  honour  to  the  queen,  and  she  promised 
to  befriend  Ninon  in  the  matter  of  the  threat  Anne 
ever  held  over  her  of  sending  her  to  a  convent. 
The  thought  of  cloistral  seclusion  was  a  terror  to 
Ninon  ;  unless  now  and  again,  theoretically  it  might 
be  pleasant.  Ninon  observed  certain  restraints  in 
her  ways  of  life ;  and  more  than  once  she  excluded 
from  her  reunions  fashionable  high-born  women  who 
had  scandalised  society  by  their  loose  conduct.  More- 
over, Madame  de  Longueville  was  one  now  of  her 
intimate  friends,  and  she  often  brought  with  her  to 


I3o  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Ninon's  house  her  young  brother,  who  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  bravely  in  the  Fronde,  and  she 
would  not  countenance  corruption  of  the  youthful 
hero  by  including  women  of  notorious  evil-living 
among  her  guests. 

Madame  de  Longueville,  lacking  the  power  to 
carry  on  any  more  political  intrigue,  took  up 
literature,  and  set  the  Hotel  Rambouillet  in  a 
ferment,  by  her  championing  of  Voiture's  sonnet  on 
Uranie  against  Benserade,  who  had  composed  one 
on  Job.  The  Uranists  and  the  Joblins  contended 
fiercely  over  the  merits  of  the  two  productions. 
The  news  of  the  victory  of  Rocroi  did  not  create 
greater  excitement  than  the  clamour  of  rivalry  made 
over  the  two  poets. 

Madame  de  Longueville  failed  to  win  back  the 
favour  of  the  queen  after  the  part  she  had  taken  in 
the  Fronde.  She  grew  disgusted  with  the  world, 
and  retired  into  the  convent  of  the  Visitation  at 
Moulins,  of  which  her  aunt,  the  widow  of  the  Due 
de  Montmorency,  was  the  superior.  Some  time 
later,  her  husband  persuaded  her  to  return  to  the 
world  ;  but  it  was  not  to  Paris,  but  to  Rome  she 
went  to  live,  and  so  the  ties  of  friendship  between 
her  and  Ninon  fell  away. 

The  whim  once  seized  Ninon  to  pretend  to  one 
of  her  admirers  that  she  wished  to  marry.  The 
young  man  ardently  expressed  his  willingness  for 
this;  but  Ninon  insisted  on  having  a  settlement 
from  him,  and  no  small  one,  being  in  fact  nearly 
his  whole  fortune.  He  signed  it  away  to  her. 
Long  before  the  arrival  of  the  proposed  wedding- 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

day,  however,  the  fiances  ardour  had  cooled ;  and 
his  misery  at  the  loss  of  his  money  would  have 
melted  a  stone  to  compassion.  Having  carried  on 
her  amusement  long  enough,  Ninon  one  morning 
told  him,  as  she  sat  at  her  toilet-table,  to  unroll  the 
curl-paper  on  her  left  temple.  He  did  so,  and 
Ninon  bade  him  keep  it,  which  he  joyfully  did  ;  for 
it  was  his  little  bill  of  eighty  thousand  or  so  of 
livres.  Then  she  released  him  from  his  allegiance, 
warning  him  to  be  more  careful  in  future  of  rash 
promises  ;  since  some  women  were  designing  and 
absolutely  unscrupulous. 

Monsieur  de  Navailles,  the  husband  of  the  lady 
who  had  the  care  of  the  queen's  young  ladies  of 
honour,  was  another  admirer  of  Ninon's.  His 
devotion  was  out-rivalled,  however,  by  that  he  paid 
to  Bacchus.  Piqued  at  his  neglect  of  her,  she  con- 
trived to  punish  him  on  one  of  the  several  occa- 
sions when  the  vine-leaves  were  in  his  hair,  by 
appearing  to  him,  after  his  prolonged  sleep,  in  his 
own  pour point ',  and  putting  his  hat  on  her  head,  she 
entered  the  room  where  he  lay  snoring.  Flourish- 
ing a  sword,  and  swearing  like  a  trooper,  she 
threatened  to  run  him  through ;  and  then,  having 
succeeded  in  really  alarming  him,  she  laughingly 
revealed  her  identity. 

Madame  de  Navailles  was  a  rigid  disciplinarian 
with  her  charges  —  not  without  cause,  for  Louis 
XIV.,  arriving  at  years  of  discretion,  had  evinced 
great  interest  in  the  mode  of  life  led  by  them  in 
their  private  apartments  ;  but  Madame  de  Navailles 
was  adamant.  De  Navailles,  therefore,  who  was 


132  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

ambitious  of  advancement  at  Court,  devised  the 
notion  of  becoming  once  more  greatly  enamoured 
of  his  wife ;  and  thus  gaining  access  to  the  general 
salon  of  the  ladies,  he  contrived,  without  madame's 
knowledge,  to  get  a  panel  knocked  out  in  the  wall 
skirting  a  small  stairway,  by  which  nothing  was 
easier  than  for  his  youthful  Majesty  to  come  and  go 
at  pleasure.  This  means  of  communication  being 
however,  very  soon  discovered,  the  aperture  was 
blocked  up  ;  so  greatly  to  the  annoyance  of  the  king, 
that  he  dismissed  Madame  de  Navailles  from  her 
post ;  though  he  had  the  gratitude  to  present  her 
husband  with  the  marshal's  baton. 

It  was  at  this  time,  for  a  good  while  past,  that 
Ninon  lived  under  the  terror  of  the  queen's  threat 
of  sending  her  into  a  convent,  the  more  likely  to 
be  carried  out  now  on  account  of  the  part  she  had 
taken  in  the  events  of  the  Fronde.  Her  numerous 
friends  and  partisans  were  also  anxious  on  this 
score,  and  the  matter  became  one  of  so  much 
interest  and  discussion,  that  one  day  a  champion 
presented  himself  at  her  door,  seeking  an  interview. 
He  represented  himself  as  an  ex-captain  of  the 
Guards  of  Christina,  Queen  of  Sweden,  who,  he  said, 
entertained  a  considerable  appreciation  of  such  fine, 
tall,  robust  giants  as  he  was.  Ninon,  however,  who 
accepted  his  services  and  his  sword  at  the  wage  of 
a  pistole  a  day,  soon  found  him  rather  an  incubus, 
and  was  glad  to  hand  him  over  to  the  service  of 
Monsieur  de  Navailles. 

The  consecration  of  the  young  king  was  now 
about  to  take  place  at  Rheims.     Each  of  the  queen's 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  133 

ladies  of  honour  was  authorised  to  choose  a  com- 
panion from  among  her  friends  for  the  ceremony, 
and  Madame  de  Choisy  invited  Ninon  for  this 
purpose,  having  the  generous  intention  of  trying  to 
restore  her  to  the  regent's  favour.  It  was  entirely 
successful.  Not  only  was  all  fear  of  the  terrible 
injunction  being  carried  out  removed,  but  Ninon, 
on  the  return  to  Paris,  was  invited  to  join  the 
friendly  reunions  at  the  Palais  Royal.  Sometimes 
these  took  place  in  the  queen's  small  salon,  some- 
times in  the  apartments  of  Mazarin.  The  invited 
ones  vastly  enjoyed  themselves,  with  the  exciting 
pastimes  of  questions  and  answers,  and  broken 
sentences.  Sometimes  the  violins  were  sent  for, 
and  they  danced  the  Qu&nippe  or  the  Diablesse, 
and  still  oftener  there  were  games  of  romps. 

The  cardinal's  four  nieces  were  nearly  always 
present  at  these  gatherings.  They  were  all  charming 
and  beautiful,  Olympe,  Hortense  and  Laure  Mancini, 
though  not  absolutely  and  perfectly  sweet-tempered. 
It  was  reserved  to  Marie,  less  regularly  featured  than 
her  sisters,  but  far  more  fascinating  and  amiable,  to 
bear  the  palm,  and  to  win  the  attentions  of  the  king. 
These  were  carried  so  far,  that  it  was  thought  by 
many — Mazarin  indeed  hoped,  and  his  hopes  were 
apt  to  find  fulfilment — that  she  would  be  queen.  She 
assumed  great  authority  over  Louis,  to  the  extent 
of  not  allowing  him  to  cast  stray  glances  of  admira- 
tion on  the  ladies  of  the  Court  or  at  her  sisters. 
Louis,  however,  was  apt  to  rebel  on  this  head.  To 
this  influence,  Marie,  then  a  girl  of  fourteen  only, 
the  well-known  fact  is  ascribed  of  Louis,  then  but  a 


134  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

youth  of  sixteen,  hurrying  from  the  chase,  back  to 
Paris,  and  booted  and  spurred,  his  whip  in  his 
hand,  entering  the  grand  council  chamber  of  the 
Parliament,  where  some  new  financial  edicts  were 
being  considered  after  the  holding  of  a  Bed  of 
Justice,  and  revised  with  a  view  to  seeking  some 
modification  of  them.  In  haughty  tones,  and  with 
a  majestic  air,  Louis  bade  the  councillors  disperse 
and  leave  the  edicts  as  they  had  been  drawn  up. 
"  Monsieur  le  President,"  he  said,  "the  evils  attend- 
ing these  meetings  of  Parliament  are  but  too  well 
known.  Henceforward  I  forbid  them,  as  I  also 
forbid  these  edicts  just  registered,  to  be  tampered 
with." 

These  words  echoed  through  all  Europe.  They 
provoked  murmurs  long  and  deep  of  the  Parliament, 
and  it  was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  the 
prudence  of  Turenne  was  able  to  keep  under  the 
widespread  dissatisfaction. 

The  policy  of  Mazarin's  "education"  of  the 
young  king  was  already  bearing  the  fruit  of  the 
future  misery  of  the  country  which  his  Eminence's 
alien  authority  so  disastrously  ruled. 

The  intimacy  of  Ninon  and  Marie  Mancini 
grew  into  friendship,  and  Marie's  confidences  made 
it  clear  to  Ninon  that  it  was  her  uncle's  intention,  if 
not  her  own  avowed  one,  that  she  should  be  the 
wife  of  Louis  XIV.  But  the  constancy  of  the  great 
young  monarch  was  ever  a  fragile  thing. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  Whirligig  of  Time,  and  an  Old  Friend— Going  to  the  Fair — 
A  Terrible  Experience — The  Young  Abbe* — "  The  Brigands 
of  La  Trappe  " — The  New  Ordering — An  Enduring  Memory 
— The  King  over  the  Water — Unfulfilled  Aspirations — "  Not 
Good-looking." 

TEMPO  R  A  MUTANTUR.  Ninon,  in  the  course  of  the 
years  which  were  now  bringing  her  to  middle 
life,  had  seen  many  changes ;  but  when  her 
friend  St  Evr^mond  came  back  about  this  time 
from  the  wars,  after  seven  or  eight  years'  absence, 
he  told  her  that  she  had  not  changed  with  them. 
Beautiful  and  youthful-looking  as  ever  he  assured 
her  she  was,  and  to  prove  his  words,  he  took  a 
little  mirror  in  one  hand,  and  in  the  other  the 
portrait  Rubens  had  painted  of  her  years  before, 
and  bade  her  make  the  comparison  herself. 

There  is  little  doubt,  at  all  events,  that  Time's 
finger  had  scarcely  dulled  the  delicacy  of  her  com- 
plexion, or  the  brightness  of  her  eyes. 

Were  thanks  due  to  the  Man  in  Black  for  this  ? 
It  was  a  question  she  put  to  St  Evremond  very 
seriously,  but  the  cheery  Epicurean  had  only  a 
smile  and  a  witticism  for  answer.  The  devil,  he 
assured  her,  did  not  exist,  and  he  proposed  to 
escort  her  to  the  fair  of  St  Germain  that  fine 
February  afternoon.  This  was  scarcely  the  best 
way  to  make  good  his  assertion ;  for  if  his  Satanic 
Majesty  was  to  be  found  in  Paris,  it  was  certainly 


136  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

in  that  quarter ;  for  was  not  the  rue  d'Enfer,  whence 
the  Capucins  had  ejected  him  from  his  house,  hard 
by  ?  This,  however,  had  by  no  means  hindered  the 
brethren  of  St  Germain  des  Pr6s  countenancing  the 
proceedings,  which  had  come  to  be  near  to  an  orgy, 
of  the  annual  market,  or  fair  of  St  Germain  des 
Pr& — by  the  letting  their  ground  for  it  to  be  held 
upon.  From  the  king,  to  the  most  villainous  of  the 
populace,  everybody  went  to  the  fair.  The  booths 
were  within  hail  of  the  ground  known  as  the  Pr& 
aux  Clercs,  the  haunt  of  the  basochiens,  the  lawyers' 
clerks  of  the  Palais  de  Justice,  away  upon  the  He 
de  la  Cite",  between  St  Sulpice  and  St  Germain — 
the  church  of  the  three  steeples.  The  roof  of  the 
modern  flower-market  now  covers  this  ground. 
Everything  conceivable  could  be  purchased  at  the 
stalls,  from  the  richest  silks  and  velvets  to  a  pan- 
cake or  a  glass  eye,  or  a  wooden  leg  or  a  wax  arm, 
or  essences  and  waters  for  turning  old  people  young 
again  ;  every  game  of  chance,  thimblerig,  lottery, 
cards,  held  out  its  temptation  ;  every  kind  of  enter- 
tainment, dancing,  tumbling,  jugglery,  music  of 
riddle  and  fife,  and  drum  and  tabor — a  deafen- 
ing tintamarre ;  all  kinds  of  beverages — wine, 
cider,  tea,  coffee — "  to  drive  away  melancholy;" 
syrups  were  concocted  for  the  dust-dried  throats  of 
the  surging  crowd  of  fine  ladies,  students,  lackeys, 
soldiers,  dainty-shod,  short-cloaked,  blond-bewigged 
abbe's,  pages,  beggars,  gipsies.  Respectable  bour- 
geois families  rubbed  shoulders  with  flaunting  women, 
and  the  wretched  crew  of  mendicant  impostors 
from  the  old  cours  de  miracles.  Often  it  was  the 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  137 

scene  of  fracas  and  fisticuffs  and  damaged  counten- 
ances. On  one  occasion,  a  page  of  the  Due  de 
Bouillon  cut  off  the  ears  of  a  clerk  of  the  basoche 
and  put  them  in  his  pocket.  The  students  of  the 
quarter  fell  to  murderous  assault  upon  the  fellow, 
while  the  pages  retaliated,  and  many  a  dead  body 
of  page  and  student  was  found  afterwards  in  the 
ditches  of  the  Abbaye.  At  once  an  earthly  paradise 
and  a  pandemonium  was  the  time-honoured  annual 
market  of  St  Germain  des  Pre*s,  and  in  the  midst  of 
the  madding  riot  and  confusion  a  great  deal  of 
serious  business  was  transacted  among  the  merchants 
and  foreign  traders  who  came  from  afar  to  exhibit 
their  wares,  as  for  centuries  had  been  the  custom, 
ever  since  mediaeval  day,  when  church  porches  and 
convent  gates  were  nearly  the  only  rendezvous  for 
buying  and  selling. 

Not  absolutely  accepting  St  Evrdmond's  theory, 
Ninon  and  her  cavalier  left  the  fair  to  walk  home- 
wards, little  thinking  that  they  were  to  be  confronted 
by  the  blood-chilling  tale  the  pale  lips  of  Madame 
de  Chevreuse  poured  hurriedly  out  to  them  from  the 
window  of  her  carriage,  which  she  called  to  a  halt  as 
they  passed  across  the  Pont  Neuf — a  tale  upon 
whose  precise  details  the  chronicles  of  the  time 
slightly  differ,  even  to  casting  doubt  upon  it  as  a 
fact,  though  the  circumstances  are  no  more  than 
consonant  with  probability.  The  beautiful  but 
profligate  Madame  de  Montbazon,  it  will  be 
remembered,  had  been  sent  by  the  queen,  on 
account  of  her  glaring  attempts  at  mischief-making, 
to  reflect  upori  her  misdeeds  at  Tours.  It  was 


138  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

held  that  she  would  not  find  the  punishment  so 
tedious  and  unpleasant  as  it  might  have  been  if  M. 
1'Abbd  de  Ranee*  had  not  been  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. He  was  her  lover,  and  a  most  ardent  one, 
constantly  by  her  side,  but  not  to  persuade  her  to 
penitence  ;  on  the  contrary,  de  Ranc6  was  wild  and 
profligate  of  life  as  the  woman  he  adored.  He  was 
brilliantly  clever.  At  school  he  outrivalled  his  class- 
fellow  Bossuet,  and  when  but  thirteen,  he  published 
an  essay  on  the  dignity  of  the  soul ;  and  beneath  his 
dissolute  ways  the  gold  of  a  conscience,  of  which  so 
many  of  the  Courtly  circle  in  which  he  moved  seemed 
absolutely  devoid,  often  shone  through.  Armand 
Jean  de  Ranee  was  one  of  an  old  and  distinguished 
family,  and  he  was  only  ten  years  old  when  the  Abbey 
of  la  Trappe  in  Normandy  was  bestowed  on  him. 

The  monastery  of  la  Grand  Trappe  du  Perche, 
said  to  have  been  so  named  from  its  hidden  posi- 
tion among  the  dense  forests  of  the  stormy  Norman 
headland,  is  of  very  ancient  foundation.  It  was 
established  in  the  twelfth  century  by  Robion,  Comte 
du  Perche.  The  brethren  followed  the  Cistercian 
rule,  and  for  several  centuries  it  was  in  high  repute 
for  the  sanctity  of  its  community,  and  for  its  wealth, 
which  was  put  to  its  legitimate  charitable  uses.  In 
course  of  time,  like  so  many  other  abbeys,  it  was 
given  in  commendam,  and  its  pious  repute  fell  away 
to  such  an  extent  that  the  seven  monks — all  that 
remained  in  the  monastery — were  called  by  the 
surrounding  peasantry  "the  brigands  of  la  Trappe." 
They  were  notorious  for  their  evil  living,  spending 
the  time  in  drinking  and  hunting  ;  and  shunned 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  139 

alike  by  men,  women  and  children,  the  Trappist 
monks  were  the  terror  of  the  district. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  child,  Armand  de 
Rance\  was  made  Abbe,  and  affairs  at  la  Trappe  con- 
tinued to  fall  from  bad  to  worse.  As  de  Ranee  grew 
up,  among  many  benefices  conferred  on  him,  he  was 
appointed  Almoner  to  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  and 
spent  most  of  his  time  in  a  whirl  of  dissipation  in 
the  Courtly  circles  in  Paris.  His  splendid  entertain- 
ments, his  magnificent  house,  the  trappings  of  his 
horses,  especially  those  of  the  chase,  were  the  talk 
of  Paris,  and  his  daring  intrigues  startled  even  the 
licence  indulged  in  by  the  society  he  moved  in. 
In  this  circle  de  Ranc£  specially  singled  out 
the  stepmother  of  the  Duchesse  de  Chevreuse, 
Madame  de  Montbazon,  a  woman  as  notorious 
for  her  profligacy  and  unscrupulous  character  as 
she  was  physically  beautiful. 

After  a  time  spent  in  banishment  at  Touraine, 
she  had  been  permitted  to  return  to  her  Paris  home, 
and  de  Ranee,  who  had  been  absent  for  a  short 
time,  returning  to  Paris,  hastened  to  call  upon  her. 
Arrived  at  the  house,  he  found  it  deserted,  and  pass- 
ing in  by  an  open  door,  he  hurried  along  the  silent 
passages,  calling  for  the  servants  and  upon  her  name, 
but  there  was  no  response.  At  last  he  reached  the 
door  of  her  apartments,  and  rushing  across  the 
anteroom,  he  flung  aside  the  portieres  of  her  bed- 
chamber. An  open,  trestle-supported  coffin, 
across  which  a  sheet  lay  carelessly  flung,  met  his 
eyes,  and  turning  from  it  to  the  table  close  by,  the 
decapitated  head  of  Madame  de  Montbazon  con- 


140  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

fronted  him.  Momentarily  he  failed  to  recognise 
the  features  of  the  ghastly  object ;  for  the  face  was 
blurred  with  the  ravages  of  smallpox.  The  fell 
disease  had  attacked  Madame  de  Montbazon,  and 
she  had  died  of  it.  The  body  and  head  were  being 
prepared  for  embalming,  and  for  this  end — or  as 
some  versions  of  the  tale  tell,  because  the  coffin 
had  not  been  made  long  enough — the  head  had 
been  cut  off,  and  placed  upon  the  table. 

The  silent  horror  of  this  ghastly  experience 
carried  an  eloquence  beyond  all  power  of  words  to 
the  heart  of  de  Ranee*.  Swayed  by  a  revulsion  of 
feeling,  naturally  sensitive  and  imaginative,  he 
looked  back  upon  his  past  life  with  loathing. 
The  hollowness  of  worldly  pleasures,  and  un- 
certainties of  a  worldly  existence  were  yet  still  more 
deeply  impressed  upon  his  mind,  by  a  serious  accident 
he  suffered  in  the  hunting-field,  and  by  the  death  of 
his  patron,  the  Due  d'Orle*ans.  All  seemed  vanity. 

De  Ranee*  was  at  this  time  thirty-four 
years  old.  With  the  exception  of  the  ancient 
monastery  of  la  Trappe,  lost  amid  the  wild  forests 
verging  on  the  perilous  rock-bound  shores  of  ex- 
treme North-Western  Normandy,  he  divested  him- 
self of  his  property  and  possessions,  and  went  to 
take  up  his  residence  in  la  Trappe,  endeavouring 
to  establish  the  old  discipline  in  it.  But  the  seven 
spirits  he  found  there  were  unruly,  and  had  no 
mind  for  being  disturbed.  So  entirely  were  they 
opposed  to  the  abb6's  reforms,  that  his  life  was  in 
danger  from  them,  for  they  threatened  to  throw 
him  into  the  fish-ponds  ;  and  Brigadier  Loureur, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  141 

stationed  at  Mortagne,  the  nearest  town  of  impor- 
tance, begged  de  Ranee  to  accept  a  guard  of  his 
soldiery ;  but  de  Ranee*  decided  that  since  the 
brigands  of  la  Trappe  had  clearly  less  than  no 
vocation  for  the  vows  of  poverty,  chastity,  and 
obedience,  they  were  best  entirely  got  rid  of — and 
he  pensioned  them  off  and  sent  them  away,  not  in 
wrath,  but  in  peace.  Their  place  was  filled  by 
Cistercian  brethren  of  the  strict  observance. 

The  position  of  an  abb£,  or  for  that  matter,  an 
abbess  in  the  ranks  of  the  Church,  had  long  become 
an  anomalous  one.  The  relaxation  of  the  old  rigid 
conventual  ruling  had  wrought  great  changes. 
It  was  not  unusual  to  find  some  lady  of  a  noble 
family  appointed  to  the  nominal  charge  of  a 
monastery,  and  some  equally  nobly-born  gentleman 
set  over  a  community  of  nuns  ;  and  in  either  case, 
as  likely  as  not,  they  had  no  knowledge,  or  next  to 
none,  of  the  every-day  mode  of  life  or  working  of 
such  community.  At  the  fair  of  St  Germain 
the  abbe's  always  swarmed  thick  as  flies,  in 
their  short  black  habits  and  delicate  little  linen 
bands,  as  where  did  they  not  congregate  in  the 
society  of  the  time  ?  The  salons  of  the  H6tel  de 
Rambouillet  and  other  brilliant  assemblies  were 
dotted  all  over  with  them.  They  were  the  makers 
of  petits  vers  and  bouts  rimds,  and,  if  nothing  more, 
pretty  well  indispensable  to  the  following  of  a 
fine  lady  as  cavaliere  serventis.  They  were  wont  to 
make  themselves  generally  amusing  and  agreeable, 
everything,  in  short,  but  useful  to  the  spiritual  needs 
of  the  Church  in  whose  ranks  they  were  supposed 


142  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

to  serve.  They  wore  their  vows  too  lightly  for  the 
Abbe*  de  Ranee  to  dream  of  exercising  real 
authority  in  virtue  of  the  title  alone ;  and  he  quali- 
fied himself  for  the  dignity  he  intended  to  assume 
of  Superior  of  the  monastery  of  la  Trappe 
in  Normandy — by  entering  as  a  novice  in  the 
Cistercian  Abbey  of  Persigny.  This  ended,  he 
took  the  vows,  in  company  with  a  servant  who  was 
deeply  attached  to  him,  and  was  confirmed  abbot. 

The  order  of  strict  Cistercian  observance  is  rigid 
in  the  extreme — almost  utter  silence,  hard  labour, 
total  abstinence  from  wine,  eggs,  fish,  and  any 
seasoning  of  the  simple  fare  of  bread  and  vege- 
tables. The  earnestness  and  eloquence  of  de 
Ranee  stirred  the  men  desirous  of  joining  the 
brotherhood  to  such  a  deep  enthusiasm,  that  many 
of  them  wanted  to  take  the  full  vows  at  once  ;  but 
the  Abbe*  of  la  Trappe  refused  them  this,  lest  they 
should  not  have  truly  counted  the  cost  of  their 
sacrifice.  And  not  only  in  this  case,  but  in  others  the 
famous  reformer  of  the  ancient  monastery  showed  a 
singular  judgment  and  reasonableness  in  the  ordering 
of  his  community.  And  "his  works  do  follow  him"; 
for  still  as  of  old,  hidden  amid  those  dark  forests, 
though  not  far  from  the  haunts  of  men,  stands  the  Priory 
of  Notre  Dame  de  Grace  de  la  Trappe,  its  brethren, 
spending  their  time  not  given  to  devotion,  in  alms- 
giving and  healing  and  acts  of  charity  of  every  kind. 

In  England,  meanwhile,  great  if  not  unantici- 
pated changes  had  befallen.  Oliver  Cromwell  was 
dead.  He  had  passed  away  in  comparative  peace 
in  his  bed.  Had  his  days  numbered  even  a  few  more, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  143 

they  might  have  terminated  in  assassination,  for 
deep-laid  schemes  for  this  were  hatching.  The 
dreary  Commonwealth  was  growing  daily  more  dis- 
pleasing, and  the  English  people  were  longing  for  the 
king  to  have  his  own  again.  It  was  a  day  of  joy 
indeed  to  Queen  Henrietta  Maria  which  saw  the  pro- 
gress of  King  Charles  1 1.  to  London.  She  had  some 
desire  that  he  should  wed  la  Grande  Mademoiselle, 
Gaston  d'Orleans'  daughter;  but  Mademoiselle 
nursed  a  hope  of  becoming  the  wife  of  her  cousin, 
Louis  XIV.,  a  hope  that  was  not  to  be  realised. 
Possibly,  as  Mazarin  had  said,  the  Bastille  cannon- 
ading had  killed  that  husband ;  but  after  her  long 
wanderings  she  was  again  at  Court,  and  in  fair  favour. 
Louis  XIV.,  without  being  strictly  handsome, 
had  agreeable  features  and  a  fine  presence,  which  his 
pride  and  self-consciousness  knew  very  well  how  to 
make  the  most  of.  He  had  grown  from  the  mere 
youth  into  a  dignified,  courtly  young  manhood,  and 
the  want  of  knowledge  and  defective  bringing  up 
were  fairly  well  concealed  by  "the  divinity  which 
doth  hedge  a  king."  It  certainly  always  enfolded 
Louis  XIV.  "Ah,  my  dear  cousin,"  cried  Queen 
Christina  of  Sweden,  when  she  first  saw  him,  "  some 
one  told  me  you  were  not  good-looking !  Sacre- 
bleu ! "  she  added,  bestowing  a  sounding  kiss  on  both 
of  Louis's  cheeks,  "  if  I  had  the  man  who  told  that  lie 
here,  I  would  cut  off  his  ears  before  you  !  "  and  she 
still  stood  gazing  admiringly  at  the  king.  So  there 
could  be  no  further  doubt  about  his  attractive 
appearance ;  for  Queen  Christina  was  accounted  an 
unerring  judge  in  such  matters. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

Christina's  Modes  and  Robes — Encumbering  Favour — A  Comedy 
at  the  Petit-Bourbon — The  Liberty  of  the  Queen  and  the 
Liberty  of  the  Subject — Tears  and  Absolutions — The 
Tragedy  in  the  Galerie  des  Cerfs — Disillusions. 

CHRISTINA,  ex-Queen  of  Sweden,  was  not  more  nice 
in  style  of  dress  than  she  was  in  the  choice  of  a 
word  to  add  strength  to  her  affirmations,  and  "  sacrt- 
bleu  "  was  a  mild  sponsor  for  the  swear-word  she 
really  selected  on  the  occasion.  The  startling 
force  of  it,  combined  with  the  extraordinary  costume 
she  wore,  excited  an  irrepressible  burst  of  laughter 
from  the  queen  and  from  Mazarin,  and  all  present 
followed  suit — all  but  the  king,  who  looked  dis 
concerted  and  rebukeful. 

Christina  wore  a  wig,  standing  up  high  over  her 
forehead,  with  tufts  of  curls  sticking  out,  all  rough 
and  tousled,  on  each  side  of  her  face,  which  was,  how- 
ever, far  from  really  ill-looking.  She  had  on  a  coat, 
which  was  a  cross  between  a  man's  pourpoint  and  a 
woman's  cape,  put  on  so  carelessly  that  it  left  one 
shoulder  half-exposed.  Her  skirt  was  not  cut  a  la 
mode  into  a  long  train ;  it  was  merely  a  round 
petticoat,  so  short  as  to  afford  ample  display  of  leg. 
A  man's  shirt  and  a  man's  boots  completed  this 
costume,  in  which  the  great  King  of  Sweden's 
daughter  presented  herself  to  the  Majesties  of 
France. 

She  met  the  risible  gaze  of  the  Court  with  dis- 
144 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  145 

pleasure,  and  inquired  what  they  were  all  staring 
at.  "Am  I  humpbacked?"  she  demanded,  "or 
aren't  my  legs  well-shaped?"  The  king,  with 
courtly  good-nature,  threw  oil  on  the  troubled 
waters,  and  Christina  was  pacified,  observing  that 
Louis  spoke  like  the  king  and  gentleman  he  was. 
"And  as  for  you  others,"  she  added  to  the  rest, 
"mind  yourselves." 

Ninon,  who  was  indisposed,  was  not  present  at 
this  scene  ;  but  recovering  some  days  later,  she  went 
to  the  Louvre,  where,  thanks  to  her  friend  Madame 
de  Choisy,  she  came  and  went  constantly ;  and  as 
she  passed  along  a  gallery  leading  to  that  lady's 
apartments  she  met  Madame  de  Choisy  and 
Christina,  who  was  attired  in  very  much  the  same 
manner  as  already  described,  but  slightly  less  outrt. 

The  queen  was  fascinated  at  first  sight  with 
Ninon.  She  placed  her  two  hands  on  her  shoulders 
and  gazed  long  and  fixedly  into  her  face.  "  Now  I 
understand,  my  dear,"  she  said  at  last,  "  all  the  follies 
the  men  commit,  and  will  commit  for  you.  Embrace 
me,"  and  she  bestowed  two  such  sounding  kisses 
on  Ninon's  cheeks,  as  she  had  bestowed  on  the 
king's.  Then  taking  her  by  the  arm,  she  led  her  to 
her  own  assigned  apartments,  at  the  door  of  which 
stood  two  bearded  men,  one  of  them  Count 
Monaldeschi,  her  Grand  Master  of  the  Horse,  the 
other  the  successor  of  the  redoubtable  Des- 
mousseaux,  the  Chevalier  Sentinelli,  captain  of  her 
guard. 

Some  time  before  her  visit  to  Paris,  Christina 
had  abdicated,  declaring  that  the  formalities  and 


146  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

restrictions  of  the  existence  of  a  crowned  queen 
were  unendurable,  the  cares  of  a  kingdom  rendered 
life  a  slavery,  and  she  desired  perfect  liberty.  The 
liberty  she  sought  for  herself,  however,  she  in  no 
wise  extended  to  others  ;  for  while  she  renounced 
her  claims  to  her  inherited  kingdom,  she  reserved 
to  herself  absolute  and  supreme  authority,  with  the 
right  of  life  and  death  over  all  who  should  enter 
her  service  or  be  of  her  suite.  Then,  a  Protestant 
born,  she  joined  the  Catholic  communion.  It  was 
probably  a  mere  caprice  ;  for  she  did  not  spare  her 
coarse  witticisms  on  the  newly-adopted  faith,  and 
very  soon  she  contrived  so  seriously  to  offend  the 
College  of  Cardinals  that  she  was  forced  to  leave 
Rome,  which  she  had  entered  on  horseback,  dressed 
almost  like  a  man.  After  a  while  she  had  come  to 
France,  and  probably  somewhat  impressed  with  the 
elegancies  of  the  Court,  she  made  some  modification 
of  the  hideous  attire  she  had  first  appeared  in. 
When  Ninon  first  met  her  in  the  Louvre  gallery, 
Her  Majesty  wore  a  grey  petticoat  skirt  of  decent 
length,  trimmed  with  gold  and  silver  lace,  a  scarlet 
camlet  coat,  her  wig  was  of  the  unvarying  pale  yellow 
hue,  and  she  carried  a  handkerchief  of  costly  lace, 
and  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  plumed  with  black  ostrich 
feathers.  With  her  white  skin,  her  aquiline  nose 
and  fine  teeth,  she  would  have  made  a  very 
presentable  boy. 

She  was  very  voluble,  and  her  immeasurable 
admiration  of  Ninon  to  her  face,  was  almost  dis- 
concerting, even  to  one  so  very  well  accustomed  to 
compliments.  At  last,  the  subject  being  exhausted, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  147 

the  ex-queen  fell  to  asking  all  sorts  of  questions 
about  the  king,  the  queen,  the  cardinal,  the  new 
palace  at  Versailles,  the  Italian  Opera.  Then  she 
had  much  to  say  about  her  own  country  and  her 
abdication ;  about  Descartes,  who  had  died  at  her 
Court  a  victim  to  the  climate  ;  about  Count 
Monaldeschi,  with  whom,  she  confided  to  Ninon, 
she  was  on  terms  of  very  close  intimacy,  and 
about  a  hundred  other  things. 

During  Christina's  stay  in  Paris,  Ninon  had 
the  delight  of  seeing  again  that  most  dear  friend 
and  protege  of  hers,  Moliere,  after  his  long  absence 
in  the  provinces.  Christina  was  with  Ninon  when 
he  arrived,  and  as  he  and  his  company  were  to 
play  that  same  night  the  Cocu  Imaginaire,  at  the 
Petit-Bourbon,  it  was  arranged  that  the  two  ladies 
should  be  present. 

Christina  had  the  appetite  of  an  ogress,  and 
before  they  started  for  the  theatre,  she  did  ample 
justice  to  the  handsome  repast  Perrote  served  up. 
Then  Her  ex- Majesty  summoned  her  captain  of  the 
Guards,  and  Grand  Master  of  the  Horse — who  had 
been  regaled  in  another  room  on  turkey  and  other 
dainties,  and  they  repaired  to  the  Petit- Bourbon. 

The  evening  proved  anything  but  enjoyable  to 
Ninon.  A  market-woman  would  have  comported 
herself  more  decently  than  this  eccentric,  semi- 
barbarous  royal  person.  She  greeted  the  sallies  of 
the  actors  with  loud  shouts  of  laughter,  and  used 
language  that  was  rankly  blasphemous ;  while  she 
wriggled  and  lolled  in  her  chair,  and  stretched  her 
feet  out  among  the  footstools  and  cushions,  in 


148  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

appalling  fashion.  It  was  in  vain  Ninon  respect- 
fully intimated  that  the  eyes  of  everybody  were 
upon  them  ;  Christina's  only  reply  was  to  beg  her 
to  let  her  laugh  as  much  as  ever  she  wanted. 

The  queen's  liking  for  Ninon  grew  embarrass- 
ing. Six  months  of  her  constant  society  were 
almost  more  than  the  most  good-natured  tolerance 
could  endure,  and  for  that  length  of  time  the  favour 
of  the  queen's  presence  was  bestowed  on  Paris. 
Then  Cardinal  Mazarin,  also  more  than  tired  of 
her,  entertaining  moreover,  suspicions  that  she  was 
brewing  political  mischief,  contrived  to  tempt  her  to 
seek  change  of  air  and  scene  at  Fontainebleau. 

Christina  caught  the  wily  cardinal's  bait.  Very 
well — yes,  it  was  a  good  idea.  She  had  a  great 
desire  to  see  the  renowned  palace  that  Francis  I. 
had  loved  so  well,  and  to  Fontainebleau,  to  the 
relief  of  Ninon  and  of  divers  other  people,  the  ex- 
queen  went :  not  to  remain  long,  however.  One 
morning,  at  a  very  early  hour,  the  Chevalier 
Sentinelli  arrived  at  the  rue  des  Tournelles  and  in- 
formed Ninon  that  she  was  wanted  at  the  Palais  Royal, 
by  his  royal  mistress,  who  had  returned  to  Paris. 

It  was  useless  to  devise  some  excuse  for  not 
obeying  the  summons  —  invitation,  or  what  it 
might  be — for  that  was  only  to  bring  the  queen 
herself  to  the  rue  des  Tournelles ;  and  so  to  the 
Palais  Royal  Ninon  went,  to  find  Christina 
stretched  upon  a  miserable  pallet-bed,  with  an  evil- 
smelling,  just-extinguished  candle  on  the  table 
beside  her.  A  serviette  did  duty  for  a  night-cap, 
tied  round  her  head,  which  was  denuded  of  every 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  149 

hair  ;  for  she  had  had  it  shaved  close  on  the  previous 
night.  Christina  presented  a  strangely  grotesque 
and  wretchedly  miserable  picture.  Seizing  Ninon 
by  both  hands,  she  told  her  that  she  was  suffering 
the  deepest  agony  of  mind— a  grief  that  was 
horrible — and  begged  her  to  stay  by  her.  At  this 
moment,  Sentinelli  entered,  and  a  whispered  con- 
versation ensued.  "Oh,  they  will  prevent  me?" 
she  cried  then.  "  They  will  prevent  me,  will  they  ? 
Let  them  dare.  Am  I  not  a  queen?  Have  I  not 
a  right  to  high  justice?  Very  well,  then,"  she  went 
on,  when  again  Sentinelli  had  bent  to  whisper  again. 
"We  must  dissimulate.  I  will  go  back  to  Fon- 
tainebleau.  There  at  least,  I  can  do  as  I  please," 
and  she  prevailed  on  Ninon  to  accompany  her. 
And  there  in  the  Galerie  des  Cerfs  at  Fontainebleau 
the  hideous  tragedy  was  enacted.  The  farce  of 
this  woman's  daily  life  fades  out  in  the  thought 
of  her  ferocity  and  revengeful  instincts.  Monaldeschi 
had  offended  her  :  he  had  done  worse,  he  had 
been  treacherous  towards  her.  Pitiless,  with  eyes 
glittering  with  rage  and  hatred,  she  stood  in  the 
Galdrie,  where  the  fading  daylight  was  illumined  by 
the  flare  of  the  torches  held  by  her  pages,  and 
taxed  the  wretched  culprit — pleading  for  mercy  at 
her  feet — with  his  crimes  ;  but  it  was  not  accorded  ; 
"  Ah,  let  me  live  !  "  he  entreated—"  let  me  live !  " 

And  Ninon,  who  had  dreaded  something,  but  was 
utterly  unprepared  for  such  a  frightful  scene,  joined 
her  entreaties  to  his  and  to  those  of  his  confessor, 
the  monk  Lebel.  "  Ah,  no !  A  woman,"  she  sobbed, 
"cannot  give  an  order  for  this  man  to  die." 


150  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  I  am  not  a  woman,"  replied  Christina ;  "  I  am 
a  queen,  and  I  have  the  right  to  punish  a  traitor. "  She 
gave  the  signal.  There  was  a  fearful  struggle,  the 
flash  of  Sentinelli's  sword,  an  agonised  cry}  a  crimson 
stream  upon  the  floor — and  then  the  silence  of  death. 

It  had  been  with  extreme  reluctance  that  Ninon 
had  accompanied  the  queen  to  Fontainebleau  ; 
but  for  all  Christina's  enigmatical  and  elaborate 
preparations  before  starting,  any  conception  of  her 
murderous  intentions  did  not  occur  to  Ninon.  She 
had  grown  accustomed  to  the  royal  lady's  freaks 
and  eccentricities.  On  this  occasion,  Christina  had 
sent  for  a  confessor,  and  having  attired  herself  from 
head  to  foot  in  black,  she  knelt  before  him  when  he 
arrived,  and  first  desiring  Ninon  not  to  leave  the 
apartment,  but  to  seat  herself  in  a  distant  corner  of 
it,  she  muttered  out  to  the  perplexed-looking 
Bishop  of  Amiens — whom  she  had  sent  for,  he 
staying  at  that  time  at  the  Tuileries,  spending  a 
kind  of  brief  retreat — what  she  had  to  say. 

It  occupied  some  five  minutes,  and  as  she  pro- 
ceeded, an  expression  of  deep  discomfiture  and 
perplexity  overspread  the  bishop's  face.  He  gave 
her  a  hurried  absolution,  and  departed,  while 
Christina  went  to  the  chapel  of  the  Feuillants  and 
communicated.  All  these  pious  preparations  had  dis- 
armed Ninon  of  any  extreme  of  uncomfortable  sus- 
picion she  might  have  entertained.  Christina  could 
not  possibly  be  nursing  any  evil  intentions — while 
Ninon  was  a  woman,  and  curiosity  had  impelled 
her  to  Fontainebleau,  to  see  what  was  the  end  of 
the  affair,  and  find  out  the  cause  of  such  floods  of  tears. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  151 

In  the  coach  with  them  were  Monaldeschi  and 
Sentinelli.  To  the  first  she  did  not  address  a  single 
word  throughout  the  journey.  It  was  nearing  five 
o'clock,  and  night  was  shadowing  in,  when  they 
arrived ;  and  when  they  had  had  supper,  Christina 
commanded  Monaldeschi  to  go  to  the  Galerie  des 
Cerfs,  where  she  would  presently  come  to  him. 
Then  she  bade  Sentinelli  follow  the  count,  and 
motioning  Ninon  to  accompany  her,  she  proceeded 
between  two  rows  of  Swiss  Guards,  armed  with 
halberds  tied  about  with  black  crape,  to  the  Galerie. 
Now  thoroughly  fearful,  Ninon  had  followed 
with  trembling  limbs.  "  In  Heaven's  name,"  she 
faltered,  "  what  does  this  mean,  Madame? — some- 
thing terrible  is  about  to  happen."  With  an  evil 
smile  Christina  threw  open  the  double  doors,  dis- 
closing Monaldeschi,  with  his  hands  fast  bound, 
kneeling  at  the  feet  of  Lebel,  whose  features  were 
ghastly  with  consternation  at  the  task  imposed  on 
him,  of  hearing  the  doomed  man's  confession. 

At  sight  of  Christina,  Monaldeschi  turned,  and 
his  agonised  cry  for  pardon  rang  through  the  Galerie ; 
but  there  was  no  mercy  in  that  hideously  hate- 
distorted  face;  and  so,  in  cold  blood,  the  murder 
was  perpetrated,  and  out  into  the  darkness  Ninon 
rushed,  calling  for  a  carriage  to  bear  her  from  the 
terrible  place,  heedless  of  the  queen's  gibes  and 
endeavours  to  persuade  her  at  least  to  remain  till 
morning.  It  was  nothing — what  she  had  done,  she 
said  ;  "  only  a  traitor  had  received  his  deserts,  and 
the  world  was  well  rid  of  him." 

But  the  coach  drew  up,  and  Ninon  fled  into  its 


152  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

shelter,  never  stopping  till  she  reached  home. 
There  she  took  to  her  bed  in  a  high  state  of 
fever,  having  ever  before  her  the  terrible  scene  of 
blood  at  Fontainebleau,  and  for  three  weeks  she 
remained  prostrated  by  the  memory  of  it.  She 
never  saw  Christina  again,  neither  did  Paris. 
Though  the  Court  took  no  proceedings  against  her 
— insult  to  hospitality  as  her  act  was,  all  other  con- 
siderations apart — she  was  avoided,  and  regarded 
with  loathing,  and  she  planned  for  herself  a  visit 
to  England.  But  Cromwell  had  already  supped 
full  of  murder.  The  image  of  it  was  sufficiently 
haunting,  and  the  endeavours  of  his  conscience  to 
make  peace  with  Heaven  before  he  died  were 
not  to  be  disturbed  by  the  presence  of  such  a 
woman.  He  turned  his  face  from  her  instead, 
and  Christina  betook  herself  to  Rome,  where 
she  fell  deep  in  debt,  and  quarrelled  fiercely  with 
the  pope. 

Overweening  ambition  was  the  bane  of  this 
undoubtedly  clever  women.  In  the  murder  at 
Fontainebleau,  it  is  thought  that  vanity  and  the 
love  of  power  tempted  her  to  display  what  she  was 
pleased  to  regard  as  a  full  length  of  it.  Exactly 
the  nature  of  Monaldeschi's  offence  remains  unex- 
plained. Christina  said  he  had  grossly  betrayed 
her,  and  some  assert  that  it  was  politically  he  had 
done  so ;  but  it  seems  more  probable  that  he  was 
a  traitor  in  love.  She  defended  herself  by  saying 
that  she  had  reserved  every  right  of  life  and  death 
over  all  who  were  in  her  service.  The  atrocious 
deed  caused  a  sensation  in  Paris  ;  especially  among 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  153 

those  of  whom  the  ex-queen  had  been  a  guest, 
and  Anne  of  Austria  sent  for  Ninon  to  relate  all 
the  details  of  her  fearful  experience  at  Fontaine- 
bleau. 

The  chief  topic  of  conversation  and  speculation 
now  was  the  marriage  of  the  young  king.  It  was 
well  known  that  Mazarin  hoped  to  crown  his 
successful  ambitions,  by  marrying  his  niece,  Marie 
Mancini,  to  Louis,  and  that  Anne  of  Austria  was 
as  strongly  opposed  to  any  such  alliance  was 
equally  well-known.  It  was  her  wish  and  her  will 
that  Louis  should  wed  the  Infanta  Maria  Theresa. 
Any  thwarting  of  this  project,  the  queen  vowed, 
should  bring  about  the  setting  aside  of  Louis,  and 
plrcing  her  second  son  on  the  throne  of  France  in 
his  stead — "  La  reine  le  veut."  Mazarin  had  to  bite 
the  dust.  The  preliminaries  for  the  Spanish 
marriage  were  set  on  foot.  The  French  and 
Spanish  emissaries  met  on  the  Isle  of  Pheasants. 
Poor  Marie  Mancini,  who  had  a  sincere  affection 
for  her  young  royal  admirer,  was  sent  out  of  the  way 
for  a  month  into  the  convent  of  the  Daughters  of 
Calvary,  which  was  hard  by  Ninon's  house.  Louis 
whispered  in  her  ear  at  parting,  that  if  the  king 
was  separated  from  her,  the  man  would  never 
cease  to  think  of  her.  Then  he  whistled  to  his 
dogs,  and  with  his  courtly  train  went  hunting  in 
the  woods  of  Chambord.  So  ended  the  love-story 
of  Mazarin's  niece,  Marie  Mancini.  So  much  "for 
the  snows  of  yester  year";  but  there  had  been 
warm  affection  between  Ninon  and  the  young  girl, 
and  they  parted  with  many  tears. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Les  Prtcieuses  Ridicules — Sappho  and  Le  Grand  Cyrus — The 
Poets  of  the  Latin  Quarter — The  Satire  which  Kills — A 
Lost  Child — Periwigs  and  New  Modes — The  Royal  Marriage 
and  a  Grand  Entry. 

MOLIERE'S  comedy,  Le  Cocu  Imaginaire — which 
had  created  such  unrestrainable  delight  in  the  ex- 
queen  of  Sweden — had  been  preceded  a  year  earlier 
by  the  famous  Precieuses  Ridicules.  To  call  this  play 
the  dramatist's  masterpiece,  is  to  do  rank  injustice 
to  his  work  of  greater  length  and  importance, 
notably,  if  one  dare  to  choose,  to  Le  Tartufe.  The 
Pre'cieuses,  however,  took  Paris  by  storm,  and  was 
accounted  a  gem.  Still  a  delightful  little  bit  of 
humour,  and  not  lacking  now  in  its  way  of  a  home- 
thrust,  it  carried  a  double-edged  power  in  the  days 
of  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  when  the  affectations 
of  speech  and  conversation  had  run  to  such  absurd 
extravagance,  that  Moliere's  satire  was  little  or  no 
exaggeration.  Mademoiselle  de  Scude*ri's  "Inutile  ! 
retranchez  le  superflu  de  cet  ardente"  is  distinctly 
precious. 

Of  the  queens  of  these  intellectual  reunions, 
Mademoiselle  de  Scuddri  was  the  reigning  novelist. 
Her  long  life,  exceeding  Ninons  in  years,  was 
devoted  to  the  production  of  romances  and  the 
lighter  sort  of  literature,  which  ran  to  a  lengthy 
record.  Le  Grand  Cyrus  stands  best  remembered, 
but  is  scarcely  more  than  a  memory.  A  long  day's 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  155 

journey  would  be  needed  to  find  the  most  ardent 
of  fiction-readers  who  would  now  care  to  follow 
through  the  windings  of  that  romance  which  in 
its  day  created  such  enthusiasm,  and  made  a 
lioness  of  the  amiable  if  some  way  from  beautiful 
Madeleine  de  Scuderi.  Artamene ;  ou,  le  Grand 
Cyrus,  after  all,  was,  to  be  sure,  scarcely  fiction.  It 
was  composed  of  little  more  than  thinly-veiled  facts, 
presenting  under  classic  names  the  living  men  and 
women  of  society  ;  heroes  and  heroines  of  antiquity 
stood  sponsors  to  the  fine,  broad-skirted,  perruqued 
gentlemen  and  fashionable  dames  of  Versailles 
and  the  Louvre  and  the  Palais  Royal.  Artaban, 
Agathyse,  Zenocrates — these  were,  in  their  modish 
habit  as  they  lived,  severally  the  Due  de  St  Bignon, 
M.  de  Rainez,  M.  Ysern,  and  others  —  while 
Mademoiselle  de  Scuderi  herself  was  Sappho.  It 
was  in  her  salon  that  was  drawn  up  the  famous 
Carte  du  Tendre — gazetteer  of  articles  necessary 
to  the  pursuit  of  love.  Mademoiselle  de  Scuderi 
wrote  with  grace  and  much  sense  ;  but  her  romances 
were  insufferably  prolix.  Ninon  found  them 
wearisome  to  a  degree,  even  though  the  Grand 
Cyrus  is  a  record  of  the  great  Prince  de  Conde\ 
George  de  Scud6ri,  Madeleine's  brother,  was  also 
a  very  fertile  novelist  of  his  day,  scarcely  to  be 
rivalled  in  speed  of  production  by  Dumas  himself. 
Nor  does  there  appear  that  the  ghosts  who  worked 
for  this  great,  more  modern  enchanter  of  the  realm  of 
historical  romance,  rendered  any  services  to  the 
seventeenth  -  century  novelist.  The  salons  of 
Madame  de  Rambouillet  and  of  Madame  de  Sable 


156  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

were  the  rendezvous  of  the  most  aristocratic  of 
these  versifiers  and  epigram-makers,  who  really 
occasionally  uttered  something  witty  or  poetical ; 
though  for  the  most  part  the  wit  and  poetry  did 
not  rise  above  such  greatness  as  that  of  Sir 
Benjamin  Backbite,  in  Lady  Sneerwell's  drawing- 
room,  on  the  macaroni  ponies  whose 

"  Legs  were  so  slim, 
And  their  tails  were  so  long." 

The  refinements  and  elegance  of  speech 
to  be  heard  at  those  reunions,  fostered,  and 
indeed  were  a  powerful  influence  in,  the  re- 
formation effected  by  the  Academic  for  the 
French  language.  But  the  passion  for  these  im- 
provements was  often  torn  to  tatters,  and  the 
puerilities  and  affectations  excited  a  reaction  among 
men  of  the  more  Bohemian  class  of  writers  and 
versifiers,  such  as  Scarron,  St  Amand  and  others, 
and  the  curious  mixture  of  real  poetic  expression 
and  thought,  profanity  and  coarseness,  in  their 
productions,  carry  back  to  the  days  of  Rabelais 
and  of  Villon,  with  echoes  of  Ronsard  and  of 
Charles  of  Orleans.  But  the  simplicity  and  beauty 
of  their  numbers  only  now  and  again  shone 
through  the  grossness  of  their  compositions,  and 
sheer  opposition  to  the  "  Cle"lies  "  and  "  Uranies"  and 
"Sapphos  "  probably  inspired  the  numerous  parodies 
and  the  odes  to  cheese  and  good  feeding  produced 
by  these  authors,  who  hailed  with  delight  the  now 
famous  actor-manager  Moliere'sPr&ieuses  Ridicules. 

The  piece  was  first  produced  at  the  Petit- Bourbon 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  157 

early  in  the  winter  of  1659.  The  plot,  deep-laid 
if  simple,  consists  of  the  successful  playing  off  by 
two  lovers  respectively  of  the  two  charming  young 
women  they  love  honestly  and  deeply,  but  who 
meet  refusal  on  the  score  of  their  language  being 
too  natural,  and  their  attire  not  sufficiently  fashion- 
able. The  two  young  men  thereupon  dress  up 
their  valets,  Mascarille  and  Jodelet,  in  fine  costumes, 
bestow  on  them  the  titles  of  marquis  and  vicomte, 
and  contrive  to  introduce  them  to  the  prtcieuses. 
The  exquisite  humour  of  the  dialogue  between 
Gorgibus,  the  father  of  one  of  the  two  girls,  and  uncle 
of  the  other,  sets  the  ball  rolling  ;  his  contempt  for 
the  new  names,  Aminte  and  Policene,  which  they 
have  selected  in  place  of  those  given  them,  as  he 
says,  by  their  godfathers  and  godmothers ;  his 
dim  grasp  of  what  he  calls  their  jargon,  when  they 
try  to  instil  into  him  some  idea  of  its  elegancies, 
is  the  essence  of  genuine  comicality,  as  are  the 
compliments  of  the  two  aristocratic  visitors  who 
inform  the  ladies  that  it  is  the  reports  of  their 
exquisite  attractions  and  beauty,  reaching  far  and 
wide,  which  has  brought  them  to  their  feet.  Then 
follows  the  flutter  of  delight,  veiled  under  the 
attempt  at  calm  graciousness,  of  the  prtcieuses. 
"But  Monsieur,"  says  Cathos  to  Mascarille,  the 
marquis,  inviting  him  to  sit  down,  "  I  entreat  you 
not  to  be  inexorable  to  this  armchair,  which  has 
been  stretching  out  its  arms  to  you  for  this  quarter 
of  an  hour  past ;  allow  it  the  satisfaction  of  em- 
bracing you."  The  fun  grows  apace,  as  the  slips 
of  tongue  and  bearing  of  the  two  pretended  gentle- 


158  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

men  begin  to  disconcert  the  two  infatuated  girls. 
At  last  a  dance  is  proposed,  the  fiddlers  are  sent 
for,  and  behind  them  enter  the  two  masters  of 
the  valets,  who  tear  their  fine  coats  off  their  backs, 
and  turn  them  out.  "  And  you,"  says  Gorgibus, 
chasing  the  prtcieuses  from  the  room,  to  repent 
at  leisure  of  their  affectations  and  thirst  for  la 
galantdrie,  "  out  of  my  sight,  and  to  the  devil  with 
all  these  verses,  romances,  sonnets,  and  the  rest 
of  it — pernicious  amusements  of  do-nothings  and 
idlers  ! "  So  the  curtain  descended  on  the  Prdcieuses 
Ridicules,  and  the  story  goes  that  before  very 
long  the  play  extinguished  the  glory  of  the  salon 
of  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet. 

The  Comte  de  Fiesque,  who  had  gone  with 
Conde  to  Spain,  was  killed  in  Catalonia  by  the 
bursting  of  a  bomb.  Ninon,  not  able  personally  to 
ask  the  widow  where  the  child  was  which  de 
Fiesque  regarded  as  his,  commissioned  two  persons 
to  ascertain  for  her  from  Madame  de  Fiesque  some 
intelligence  concerning  its  whereabouts,  but  the 
countess  asserted  that  she  had  no  knowledge  of 
this.  The  remorse  and  regret  of  Ninon  were  of  no 
avail :  she  was  unable  to  trace  the  lost  one. 

At  last,  after  long  negotiations,  Maria  Theresa 
of  Austria  was  united  to  Louis  XIV.  This  brought 
Conde  back  to  allegiance  to  France,  by  the  Peace 
of  the  Pyrenees,  effected  by  Cardinal  Mazarin,  one 
of  the  few  of  his  achievements  which  really 
benefited  France.  Ninon  was  one  in  the  gorgeous 
cortege  which  proceeded  to  Grosbois,  beyond 
Charenton,  to  receive  the  young  princess.  It  was 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  159 

a  brilliant  show.  The  fashions  of  the  early  days 
of  the  young  king  had  greatly  changed  since  his 
father's  time,  which  was  so  greatly  distinguished,  at 
least  as  far  as  male  attire  went,  for  its  elegant 
simplicity.  Bright  hues  had  superseded  the  black, 
the  beautiful  but  sombre  colouring  of  the  material 
of  the  silk  or  satin  or  velvet  doublets  with  large, 
loose  slashed  sleeves;  the  falling  bands  of  rich 
point  lace ;  the  long,  straight,  fringed  or  pointed 
breeches  meeting  down  to  the  lace-ruffled  or  lawn 
wide-topped  boots,  and  the  eminently  graceful 
Flemish  plumed  beaver  hat.  In  place  of  the  long 
hair  waving  to  the  neck,  full-bottomed  periwigs  had 
come  into  vogue ;  the  doublets  were  short  and 
waistcoatless,  displaying  a  bulging  shirt-front,  tied 
with  ribbons  to  the  nether  garments,  which,  like  the 
large  loose  sleeves,  were  covered  with  points  and 
bows  ;  deep  lace  ruffles  drooped  from  the  knees,  and 
only  the  falling  collar,  with  a  hat  higher  crowned 
than  of  yore,  but  still  plumed,  remained  of  the  old 
style. 

It  was  to  the  beauty  of  Louis  XIV.'s  hair  when 
he  was  a  little  boy,  that  the  huge,  hideous  periwigs 
seem  to  owe  their  invention.  Nature's  ruling  has 
its  exceptions  in  the  bestowal  of  naturally  curling 
head-covering,  and  desiring  to  offer  the  sincerest 
flattery  of  imitation,  the  French  courtiers  and  the 
ingenuity  of  the  coiffeurs  combined  to  invent  the 
huge  periwigs,  which  in  some  sort  of  fashion  even 
contrived  to  live  through  the  French  Revolution  and 
the  Terror  itself;  for  did  not  Robespierre  preside  at 
the  great  Feast  of  the  Supreme  Being  in  about  the 


160  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

ugliest,    primmest   bobtail  wig  ever   fashioned   on 
barber's  block  ? 

As  to  the  women's  dress  in  France,  it  varied 
somewhat  according  to  their  rank.  Middle-class 
bourgeoises  wore  the  scantiest  covering  out-of-doors 
on  their  necks  and  shoulders  ;  not  even  in  church 
was  their  attire  more  modest.  To  so  scandalous  a 
length  was  this  carried,  that  it  brought  on  them 
more  than  one  remonstrance  from  the  pulpit ; 
and  Englishwomen,  taking  as  always,  their  fashions 
from  Paris,  followed  suit.  A  Nonconformist 
English  divine  published  a  translation  of  a  French 
work  by  "  A  grave  and  learned  Papist" — possibly 
the  Cure*  of  St  Etienne — who  reprehended  in  no 
measured  terms  the  "shameful  enormity,"  as  he 
phrased  it,  of  this  style  of  dress.  The  ladies  of  the 
great  world  ordinarily  went  with  more  circumspec- 
tion in  the  streets,  and  nearly  always,  also,  they 
wore  a  mask.  It  was  generally  made  of  black 
velvet,  lined  with  white  satin.  It  fixed  itself  on 
the  face  with  a  spring,  and  was  fastened  with  a  thin 
wire,  which  was  terminated  by  a  glass  button  that 
could  be  dropped  between  the  lips,  and  so  disguise 
the  voice.  The  female  style  of  dressing  the  hair 
was  to  gather  it  up  in  a  bunch  at  the  crown  of  the 
head,  leaving  some  curls  to  hang  on  each  side  of 
the  face ;  over  this  was  placed  a  sort  of  little  linen 
hood,  the  points  of  which  usually  reached  to  the 
shoulders.  The  gowns  were  wide-sleeved  and  long- 
waisted,  with  a  skirt  embroidered  or  trimmed  with 
lace.  A  small  dog  was  almost  indispensable  to  a 
lady  of  fashion.  The  little  creatures  were  very 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  161 

pretty,  generally  having  pointed  muzzles  and  ears. 
Women  took  snuff  and  smoked,  and  the  traces  of 
these  habits  were  apt  to  leave  their  ugly  reminders 
about  their  persons  and  dress. 

A  great  many  new  streets  and  houses  were 
added  to  the  city.  The  increase  in  the  number 
of  public  vehicles  rendered  the  streets  very  noisy, 
while  the  filth  of  the  ways  was  indescribable  ;  but  this 
did  not  hinder  women  from  walking  in  velvet 
slippers,  or  pages  and  lackeys  from  wearing  bright, 
gold-laced  scarlet  livery. 

The  state  of  morals,  from  highest  to  lowest,  was 
at  a  low  ebb.  Vice  permeated  every  class,  from  the 
clergy  and  nobility  to  the  dregs  of  the  populace. 
Murder  and  barefaced  robbery  took  place  con- 
stantly in  the  streets ;  the  rage  for  gambling  was 
boundless,  and  the  cardinal-minister  made  no 
attempt  to  check  the  shameful  licence  of  the  green 
tables. 

Yet  Paris  was  fair  and  brilliant  to  the  eye  when 
Maria  Theresa  made  her  entry  in  the  most  magnifi- 
cent carriage  of  the  cortege  which  occupied  three 
hours  in  passing.  The  princess  was  not  beautiful ; 
but  her  expression  was  amiable,  and  her  complexion 
very  fair  for  a  Spanish  woman.  She  wore  a  mantle 
of  violet  velvet  embroidered  with  golden  fleur-de-lis 
over  a  robe  of  white  brocade  covered  all  down  the 
front  with  a  splendid  riviere  of  emeralds,  and  she 
wore  her  crown  with  infinite  grace  and  dignity. 

The  fierce  light  that  beats  upon  the  lives  of 
kings  and  queens  was  at  its  fiercest  when  cast 
upon  the  life  of  the  Sun-King.  His  marriage  with 


162  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

the  Spanish  princess  was  one  of  policy  and  con- 
venience, and  as  such. there  have  been  unions  more 
disastrous.  If  love  played  no  great  part  in  it,  at 
least  the  king  was  true  to  the  dignity  and  a  certain 
gentle  courtesy  and  good-nature  underlying  the 
pomp  and  extravagant  display  with  which  he  was 
pleased  to  surround  himself;  and  Maria  Theresa's 
record  of  a  queen's  life  bears  no  startling  evidence 
of  unhappiness  or  discontent — something  indeed 
to  the  contrary. 


CHAPTER  XV 

Reunions — The  Scarrons — The  Fete  at  Vaux — The  Little  Old 
Man  in  the  Dressing-gown — Louise  de  la  Valliere — How  the 
Mice  Play  when  the  Cat's  Away — "  Pauvre  Scarron  " — An 
Atrocious  Crime. 

THE  return  of  St  Evrdmond  brought  about  the 
restoration  of  the  old  pleasant  Monday  and  Friday 
reunions  of  the  rue  des  Tournelles — whose  regu- 
larity so  many  untoward  events  had  greatly  and  for 
so  long  interfered  with. 

Ninon  could  afford  to  dispense  with  the  less 
interesting  society  of  the  Louvre,  where,  except  for 
Madame  de  Choisy's  friendship,  no  very  cordial  hand 
had  ever  been  extended  to  her  ;  while  the  cultured, 
refined  Bohemianism  of  her  salon  was  probably  more 
acceptable  to  many  of  her  distinguished  friends. 
They  at  all  events  gathered  there  numerously.  Mon- 
sieur de  la  Rochefoucauld,  ever  faithful  to  the  beauti- 
ful Duchesse  de  Longueville ;  Conde"  ;  the  brilliant 
society  doctor  of  his  day  and  memoir  writer,  Guy 
Patin  ;  Monsieur  de  la  Chatre,  also  a  chronicler  of 
his  period ;  Monsieur  de  Villarceaux,  Corneille,  whose 
tragedy  of  (Edipus  brought  him  back  in  high-heaped 
measure  the  success  which  had  waned  since  the 
production  of  The  Cid^  so  greatly  that  he  had  nearly 
lost  heart  for  dramatic  work ;  Moli£re — these  two 
the  brightest  and  best-beloved  stars  of  Ninon's 
firmament.  Monsieur  Voiture  was  now  no  more. 
His  empty  niche  was  filled  by  Boileau,  who  intro- 

163 


164  NINON  DE  I7ENCLOS 

doced  to  her  his  young  friend,  Racine.  Occasion- 
ally, by  kind  permission  only  of  Madame  de  la 
Sabliere,  came  la  Fontaine.  Among  the  ladies  of 
her  company  were  Madame  de  la  Fayette,  the 
authoress  of  Zcude  and  of  the  Princess*  de  Cleves  ; 
Madame  Deshoulieres,  called  "  theFrench  CaUiope  "  ; 
and,  as  healing  Time's  wings  now  and  again 
bring,  it  was  Moliere  himself  who  effected  pleasant 
relations  once  more  with  Julie  de  Rambouillet,  now 
Duchesse  de  Montausier ;  Madeleine  de  Scuderi,  the 
distinguished  ^r&tiitti,  held  aloof 

On  Wednesdays  the  Scarrons  received  their 
friends,  most  of  those  the  same  as  Ninon's. 
Frangoise  had  now  long  been  the  wife  of  Scarron, 
and  h»g  wit  and  her  beauty  attracted  a  numerous 
company.  The  brother  of  Francoise  had  not 
mended  his  ways.  He  was  still  the  ne'er-do-well 
result  of  his  miserable  bringing  up ;  yet  there  was 
something  not  to  Hisinc^  even  something  of  a  soul 
of  good  in  d' Aubigni's  evfl.  The  poor  crippled  poet 
and  his  wife  were  happy  in  their  union.  Scarron  had 
indeed  but  two  faults  to  find  in  his  Francoise — one 
of  them  to  wit,  that  she  devoted  herself  too  closely 
to  him,  at  the  sacrifice  of  health  and  spirits.  She 
had  copied  all  his  Roman  Comiqne  for  him  in  her 
beautiful  handwriting,  and  Scarron,  noting  that  she 
looked  pale  and  fatigued,  begged  Ninon  to  take 
her  about  a  little  with  her  into  the  gaieties  of  life. 

Scarron's  chronic  ailments  had  not  affected  his 
appetite;  possibly  amusement  being  necessarily 
very  restricted  for  him,  his  naturally  gourmand 
ir»c,r£aS£d,  This  was  to  such  an 


NINON  DE  I/ENCLQS  165 

extent,  that  his  wife  went  ever  in  fear  of  his  indiges- 
tions, and  when  he  suggested  that  she  would  be  so 
much  better  for  occasional  absences  from  home, 
Ninon  did  not  ascribe  it  to  pure  and  simple  anxiety 
for  Francpise,  but  also  to  his  seizing  a  better  chance 
for  eating  three  times  as  much  as  was  good  for  him. 
Her  vigilance  in  this  particular  was  the  other  defect 
he  perceived  in  her.  The  desired  opportunity,  how- 
ever, soon  presented  itself. 

Monsieur  Fouquet,  the  powerful  superintendent 
of  finance,  was  a  friend  of  Ninon — that  and 
nothing  more — and  one  day  he  confided  to  her 
that  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  daughter  of 
the  maitre  fkStel  of  the  Due  d'Orldans,  and  desired 
to  ask  her  hand  in  marriage.  He  hoped,  in  fact 
believed,  that  she  was  not  indifferent  to  him ;  but  to 
make  certain,  he  asked  Ninon,  such  an  adept  in  the 
tender  passion,  as  he  said,  to  watch  her  at  the  great 
f£te  he  was  about  to  give  at  his  magnificent  estate 
at  Vaux.  It  was  to  be  on  a  superb  scale.  All  the 
Court,  with  all  the  Upper  Ten,  were  invited  guests. 
They  were  to  appear  in  masquerade  costume. 
Ninon,  holding  that  the  good  turn  Monsieur 
Fouquet  sought  of  her,  merited  his  ever  generous 
consideration,  asked  him  to  allow  her  to  bring  a  lady 
friend  with  her  to  the  f£te ;  this  favour  he  accorded 
with  great  pleasure,  and  Ninon  delightedly  informed 
Madame  Scarron  that  she  was  the  chosen  friend. 
Equally  delighted,  Madame  Scarron  selected  her 
fancy  costume ;  it  was  that  of  a  Normandy  shepherd- 
ess, and  confectioned  with  all  the  good  taste  of 
Fran5oise.  The  tunic  was  of  yellow  cloth,  with 


166  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Venice  point  undersleeves,  her  collarette  was  of 
Flemish  lace,  and  Ninon  lent  her  some  of  her 
diamonds  wherewith  to  adorn  her  ribbon-tied  crook. 
Ninon's  costume  was  composed  of  pearl-grey  satin, 
trimmed  with  silver  lace  stitched  with  rose-coloured 
silk,  an  apron  of  black  velvet,  and  a  cap  plumed 
with  crimson  feathers. 

With  many  instructions  to  Nanon  Balbien,  the 
maid-servant,  to  take  good  care  of  her  master,  and 
to  keep  a  close  eye  on  him  at  meal-time,  Madame 
Scarron  drove  away  in  the  coach  with  Ninon  to 
Vaux,  where  they  duly  arrived. 

Le  Notre,  the  royal  gardener,  had  received  orders 
to  construct  a  splendid  ball-room  in  the  middle  of 
the  park,  and,  in  the  depths  of  winter  though  it  was, 
he  achieved  a  triumph  of  gorgeous  magnificence. 
Orange  trees  were  massed  within  the  huge  tent, 
and  flowers  of  every  hue  were  brought  together 
from  every  hothouse  and  possible  quarter,  to  render 
the  scene  a  veritable  fairyland,  glowing  in  the 
thousand  lamps  depending  from  the  gilded  chains 
winding  amid  the  sheeny  foliage. 

But  who  has  not  heard  of  that  fete,  the  ill- 
omened  thing  that  brought  its  lavish  giver  disaster  ? 
Among  the  guests — named  indeed  first  on  the  list  of 
the  invited — was  she  whom  Fouquet  sought  to 
honour,  perhaps  even  for  whom  he  organised  the 
entertainment — Louise  de  la  Valliere ;  and  among 
the  male  masquers  dancing  vis-a-vis  to  her,  mur- 
muring low  as  they  met,  was  one  habited  as  an  old 
man  in  a  dressing-gown,  domino  sort  of  cloak,  who 
was,  in  sooth,  but  a  young  man,  the  king,  Louis  XIV. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  167 

It  was  not  the  first  dawning  of  their  love  that  night 
at  Vaux.  Already,  at  a  ball  at  the  Louvre,  Louis 
had  given  her  a  rose,  one  that  was  incomparable  for 
sweet  perfume  and  loveliness.  Innocent  or  politically 
guilty,  it  was  all  one  for  the  great  superintendent  of 
finance.  He  had  dared  to  love  the  woman  Louis 
loved,  and  the  doom  of  Fouquet  was  sealed. 

And  the  merry  going  out  of  Ninon  and  her 
friend  also  found  a  mournful  coming  in  ;  for  when 
they  arrived  in  Paris  next  morning  and  Frangoise 
alighted  from  the  coach,  Nanon  hurried  to  the  door 
to  meet  her.  "Ah,  mademoiselle — madame!"  she 
cried,  with  a  face  wild  with  distress  and  terror, 
"  he  is  dying  !  he  is  dying! — my  poor  master!  " 

"  Bonte  divine  !  how  did  it  come  about  ?  "  asked 
the  two  ladies  in  a  breath. 

Nothing  more  simple.  The  master,  to  begin 
with,  immediately  on  the  departure  of  Ninon  and 
his  wife  for  Vaux,  had  despatched  Nanon  with  a 
note  to  his  good  -  for  -  nothing  brother  -  in  -  law. 
D'  Aubigne",  having  read  the  note,  said  that  it  was  all 
right,  and  he  would  come  and  pass  the  evening  with 
Monsieur  Scarron.  Nanon,  thus  feeling  herself  free 
also  to  enjoy  an  evening  out  like  the  rest,  spent  it 
with  Jean  Claude,  a  young  man  cousin  of  hers  ;  but 
when  at  a  fairly  decent  hour  she  returned  home, 
an  appalling  picture  met  her  eyes.  On  the  table 
prepared  for  supper,  lay,  or  stood  as  might  be,  seven 
empty  bottles,  the  bones  of  a  capon  on  the  empty 
plates,  with  the  crumbs  of  two  Chartres  pasties,  and 
an  empty  Strasburg  goose  pot,  also  well  cleared, 
madame's  brother  under  the  table,  and  Monsieur 


i68  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Scarron  lying  back  in  his  wheel-chair,  waxen-white, 
speechless,  but  convulsed  with  a  hiccough,  a  terrible 
hiccough  that  had  never  ceased  all  night,  Nanon 
said. 

"  Fly  for  a  doctor  !  "  cried  Ninon. 

And  one  of  grave  and  profoundly  calm  aspect 
appeared,  and  proceeded  to  examine  his  uncon- 
scious patient's  condition ;  then  he  shook  his 
head.  "  He  is  a  dead  man,"  he  said. 

"  Ah,  quick,  Nanon  !  Quick  to  the  rue  de  1'Arbre 
Sec,  for  Doctor  Guy  Patin." 

"  What !  "  cried  the  doctor,  with  almost  a  yell  of 
horror,  "the  foe  to  antimony  !  I  would  sooner  see 
the  devil  himself!"  and  he  fled;  for  the  battle  of 
antimony  was  at  fierce  pitch  just  then.  As  a  medi- 
cinal agent  it  was  opposed  by  the  medical  profession 
to  such  an  extent,  that  the  Parliament  of  Paris 
forbade  its  use ;  although  already  many  of  the 
profession  were  as  strongly  in  its  favour.  Mean- 
while Ninon  sprinkled  the  face  and  hands  of  the 
sick  man  with  cold  water.  He  opened  his  eyes 
and  recognised  the  two. 

"  Ah  !  "  murmured  he,  "  what  a  delicious  supper. 
In  this  world,  I  fear,  I  shall  never  have  another 
like  it." 

"  We  have  sent  for  Guy  Patin.  He  will  cure 
you." 

"  Guy  Patin  ? — yes,  he  is  a  grand  creature  ;  but, 
ah!" — and  the  hiccough,  which  had  momentarily 
ceased,  recommenced.  "  Well,  people  don't  die  of  a 
hiccough,  I  suppose,"  went  on  Scarron — alas!  for 
the  mistake ! — "  but  that  goose,  and  the  pasty,  how 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  169 

excellent  they  were !  Take  your  pen,  dearest 
Frangoise — it  is  indigestion — yes,  but  one  of 
rhymes — till  Guy  Patin  comes.  I  will  see  what 
rhyming  will  do  for  me — some  good,  surely,  for 
my  rhymes  shall  be  of  Ninon.  Take  your  pen, 
Frangoise,  and  write." 

And  as  well  as  she  could  for  her  tears,  the  poor 
wife  wrote  Scarron's  swan's-song  in  praise  of 
Ninon.  "Well,  are  they  detestable?"  he  asked 
then,  between  the  never-ceasing  convulsion  of  hic- 
coughs. "  No  matter.  I  have  rhymed — on  my 
death-bed — for  it  is  useless  to  deceive  myself — I — I 
die."  One  last  convulsion,  that  shook  his  whole 
distorted  frame,  seized  him,  and  he  fell  back  dead. 

Then  from  the  depths  of  the  room  loomed  a 
dishevelled  figure.  It  was  d'Aubigne".  "Dead!" 
he  murmured,  leaning  over  the  corpse  of  his  boon 
companion.  "Well,  he  ate — all — and  I — drank  all. 
De profundis" — and  he  shuffled  out. 

Guy  Patin  entered,  but  all  was  of  no  avail  now 
for  "  le  pauvre  Scarron,"  as  he  called  himself. 

No  ordinary  character  of  a  man  was  the  first 
husband  of  Frangoise  d'Aubigne,  the  woman  he  so 
sincerely  loved  and  admired,  so  disinterestedly 
loved,  that  he  would,  had  she  desired,  have  denied 
himself  the  happiness  of  living  in  her  society — for 
he  had  offered  her  the  choice  of  placing  her  en 
pension  in  a  convent  at  the  expense  of  his  own 
scanty  incomings.  Driven  from  his  rights  as  a 
child,  gifted  with  great  wit  and  talent,  and  a  generous 
kindliness,  he  was  beloved  by  a  large  circle  of 
friends.  First  the  victim  of  cruel,  iniquitous  neglect, 


170  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

oftentimes  his  own  enemy,  the  crosses  of  life 
never  blighted  the  gifts  of  his  intellect,  or,  it  may 
be  added,  of  his  industry.  In  straitened  conditions 
touching  on  absolute  poverty,  the  gaieti  du  cceur  of 
Paul  Scarron  never  forsook  him,  and  if  he  could 
have  lived  a  while  longer,  for  his  own  sake,  as  he 
certainly  would  for  hers  for  whose  future  he  was 
ever  anxious — he  said  with  that  labouring  dying 
breath,  that  he  could  not  have  supposed  it  so  easy 
to  make  a  joke  of  death. 

He  had  composed  his  own  epitaph  long  before — 

"  He  who  lies  sleeping  here  beneath, 
Scant  envy  but  great  pity  won, 
A  thousand  times  he  suffered  death, 
Or  ere  his  life  was  lost  and  done. 
Oh,  Stranger,  as  you  pass,  tread  light, 
Awaken  not  his  slumbers  deep, 
For  this,  bethink  you's  the  first  night 
That  poor  Scarron  is  getting  sleep." 

A  terrible  event — that  thrilled  society,  and  indeed 
everyone,  with  horror — occurred  in  the  South  of 
France  about  this  time.  To  the  Court  at  Paris  it 
struck  especially  home ;  inasmuch  as  the  victim  of 
the  fiendish  perpetrators  of  the  crime  was  the 
Marquise  de  Castellana,  at  the  time  of  her  presenta- 
tion at  Versailles.  She  was  then  very  young.  She 
brought  her  husband,  a  grandson  of  the  Due  de 
Villars,  an  immense  fortune,  and  her  beauty  was  so 
remarkable  as  to  distinguish  her  amid  the  many 
beautiful  women  of  the  young  king's  Court.  Louis, 
indeed,  showed  her  marked  attentions,  and  she  was 
known  as  the  beautiful  Provengale.  Very  soon, 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  171 

however,  the  marquis,  who  was  in  the  naval  service, 
perished  in  a  shipwreck  ;  and  a  crowd  of  young  and 
titled  men  flocked  around  the  lovely  young  widow 
as  suitors  for  her  hand.  Her  choice  fell  on  young 
Lanede*  Marquis  de  Ganges,  and  for  the  first  year 
or  so  of  their  married  life  they  were  very  happy  in 
their  home  at  Avignon.  Then  slight  disagreements 
arose  between  them.  He  began  to  yield  to  dissipa- 
tion, while  he  accused  her  of  coquetry.  More  than 
that  he  could  not  apparently  bring  against  her.  He 
had  two  brothers,  the  Abbe  and  the  Chevalier 
de  Ganges,  and  both  these  men  fell  deeply  in  love 
with  their  beautiful  sister-in-law.  In  his  capacity 
of  a  churchman,  the  young  wife  confided  many  of 
her  thoughts  and  her  affairs  to  the  abbe\  This  he 
used  as  a  tool  to  influence  his  brother,  the  marquis, 
as  it  better  suited  his  own  designs,  either  to  ruffle 
his  anger  against  her,  or  to  smooth  it.  Then  one 
day  he  pleaded  his  own  passion  to  her.  She  re- 
pulsed him.  The  chevalier  made  a  similar  attempt, 
and  was  similarly  rejected.  Furious  at  this,  they 
made  common  cause,  and  vowed  to  be  revenged  on 
her.  First  they  attempted  to  poison  her  by  putting 
some  deadly  stuff  in  her  chocolate,  but  for  some  reason 
the  attempt  failed.  It  is  thought  that  the  deadly 
properties  of  the  poison  they  used,  were  nullified  by 
the  milk,  and  she  experienced  no  more  than  a  passing 
uneasiness.  Rumours  of  the  attempt  began,  how- 
ever, to  circulate  in  Avignon  and  the  neighbour- 
hood ;  and  the  marquis  proposed  to  his  wife  that  they 
should  go  to  his  castle  at  Ganges  to  spend  the  autumn. 
She  consented  ;  though  with  some  misgiving.  The 


172  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Castle  of  Ganges  was  a  gloomy  place  surrounded 
on  all  sides  by  sombre  avenues  and  densely-growing 
trees.  After  a  short  time  spent  with  his  wife  at 
Ganges,  the  marquis  returned  to  Avignon,  leaving 
her  in  the  care  of  his  two  brothers.  A  little  while 
previously,  a  further  large  inheritance  had  fallen  in 
to  her,  and  she  had  begun  to  have  such  suspicions 
of  the  integrity  of  the  family  to  which  she  had  allied 
herself,  that  she  made  a  will,  confiding,  in  the  event 
of  her  death,  all  her  property  to  her  mother,  in  trust, 
till  her  children,  of  which  she  had  two  or  three, 
should  be  of  age.  The  abbe  and  the  chevalier,  dis- 
covering what  she  had  done,  never  ceased  their 
endeavours  to  persuade  her  to  revoke  this  will. 
What  successful  arguments  they  could  have  used 
to  effect  this,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive — unless  they 
employed  threats — and  these  possibly  they  did  use  ; 
since,  after  another  abortive  attempt  to  poison  her, 
they  one  day  entered  her  bedchamber,  where  she 
lay  slightly  indisposed  with  some  passing  ailment. 
The  abbe*  approached  her  with  a  pistol  in  one  hand 
and  a  cup  of  poison  in  the  other,  the  chevalier 
following  with  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand.  "You 
must  die,  madame,"  said  the  abbe*,  pointing  to  the 
three  fearful  means  for  accomplishing  the  purpose. 
"The  choice  of  the  manner  of  it  is  to  you."  The 
unfortunate  woman  sprang  from  her  bed,  and  fell  at 
the  feet  of  the  two  men,  asking  what  crime  she  had 
committed.  "  Choose  !  "  was  all  the  answer. 

Resistance  was  hopeless,  and  the  unhappy  lady 
took  the  cup  of  poison  and  drank  its  contents,  while 
the  abbe!  held  the  pistol  at  her  breast.  Then  the 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  173 

two  assassins  departed  from  the  room,  and  locking 
her  in,  promised  to  send  her  the  confessor  she 
begged  for. 

Directly  she  was  alone  she  tried  to  choke  back 
the  poison,  by  forcing  a  lock  of  her  hair  down  her 
throat;  then,  clad  only  in  her  nightdress,  she 
clambered  to  the  window  and  let  herself  drop  to 
the  ground,  lying  nearly  eight  yards  below.  That 
the  exits  and  doors  were  all  watched  she  had  little 
enough  doubt ;  but  by  the  aid  of  a  servant,  who  let 
her  out  by  a  stable  door,  she  gained  the  fields. 
The  two  men  caught  sight  of  her,  and  pursuing  her 
to  a  farmhouse  where  she  had  sought  refuge,  they 
represented  her  as  a  mad-woman,  and  the  chevalier 
hunted  her  from  room  to  room  of  the  house,  till  he 
trapped  her  in  a  remote  chamber,  where  he  stabbed 
her  with  his  sword,  dealing  two  thrusts  in  the  breast, 
and  five  in  the  back,  as  she  turned  in  the  last 
endeavour  to  escape.  Part  of  the  sword-blade 
had  remained  in  her  shoulder,  so  violent  was  the 
blow.  The  piercing  cries  of  the  unhappy  lady  now 
brought  a  crowd  of  the  people  of  the  neighbour- 
hood round  the  place ;  and  among  them  the  abbe, 
who  had  remained  without  to  prevent  any  effort 
on  her  part  to  escape.  Anxious  to  see  whether 
she  was  dead,  he  presented  his  pistol  at  her,  but 
it  missed  fire.  This  drew  upon  him  the  attention 
of  the  crowd,  and  they  rushed  to  capture  him ;  but 
with  a  desperate  struggle  he  got  away. 

The  marquise  lived  for  nineteen  days  after  this 
fearful  scene  ;  but  all  hope  of  life  was  gone.  The 
corroding  poison  had  done  its  fell  work.  Her 


174  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

husband  was  with  her  in  her  last  moments,  and  she 
strove  in  her  dying  agonies  to  clear  him  of  complicity 
in  the  foul  murder ;  but  the  evidence  against  him 
was  too  strong,  and  the  Parliament  of  Toulouse 
condemned  him  to  confiscation  of  his  property, 
degradation  from  his  rank  of  nobility,  and  perpetual 
banishment.  The  chevalier  escaped  to  Malta, 
where  he  soon  after  died,  fighting  against  the 
Turks.  The  abbe"  fled  to  Holland,  and  assuming 
another  name,  his  identity  was  lost.  It  is  said  that 
this  horrible  crime  was  but  the  prologue  to  many 
subsequent  iniquitous  adventures  in  which  he  was 
the  prime  mover.  The  sentence  of  being  broken 
on  the  wheel  which  was  passed  on  these  two 
criminals,  and  was  too  good  for  them,  they  thus 
contrived  to  evade.  Their  execrable  record  lives 
among  the  long  list  of  Causes  Celdbres  of  the 
time.1 

1  Gayot  de  Pitaval,  Causes  CcUbres. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

A  Lettre  de  Cachet — Mazarin's  dying  Counsel — Madame  Scarron 
continues  to  Receive — Fouquet's  intentions  and  what  came 
of  them — The  Squirrel  and  the  Snake — The  Man  in  the 
Iron  Mask — An  Incommoding  Admirer — "  Calice  cher,  ou 
le  parfum  n'est  plus  " — The  Roses'  Sepulchre. 

IT  was  in  the  very  presence  of  the  dead  Scarron 
that  Ninon  was  informed  of  the  danger  threatening 
St  Evre'mond.  A  lettre  de  cachet  had  been  issued 
for  conveying  him  to  the  Bastille,  for  the  offence  he 
had  given  in  writing  some  satirical  verses  on  the 
Peace  of  the  Pyrenees.  St  Evr^mond  was  very  far 
from  standing  alone  in  his  opinions  on  this  treaty 
carried  through  by  Mazarin;  but  he  was  unapproach- 
able in  the  expression  of  them.  Biting  invective 
and  caustic  wit  at  the  cardinal's  expense  were 
graven  in  every  line  of  his  couplets,  addressed  to 
the  Marquis  de  Cr£qui.  Nor  did  the  mockery 
cease  at  that  point ;  it  ridiculed  the  royal  marriage 
itself,  and  the  king  was  furious.  This  was  the 
second  time  that  St  Evre'mond  had  incurred  the 
displeasure  of  Mazarin ;  on  the  first  occasion,  a 
reconciliation  had  been  patched  up,  after  a  three 
months'  sojourn  for  St  Evre'mond  in  the  Bastille, 
but  this  time  he  was  past  forgiveness — possibly,  as 
it  has  been  surmised,  that  in  addition  to  the  verses, 
he  had  given  secret  offence  to  the  Court — and  it  was 
now  but  a  matter  of  tracking  St  Evre'mond  to  his 
hiding-place ;  for  he  had  been  warned  of  the  letter 


176  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

of  arrest  for  shutting  him  up  in  the  Bastille,  pro- 
bably this  time  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  had 
found  refuge  in  the  convent  of  the  Capucins  du 
Roule ;  but  already  his  goods  and  money  were 
confiscated,  and  it  was  Ninon  who  carried  him,  from 
her  own  resources,  the  necessary  notes  and  gold 
for  his  getting  away  under  cover  of  the  night  to 
Havre,  where  he  arrived  safely,  and  took  ship  for 
Dover,  never  to  return  to  France. 

The  Majesty  of  Louis  XIV.  was  as  a  thing 
divine ;  and  the  faintest  shadow  could  not  be  per- 
mitted to  cross  the  glory  of  that  sun  he  chose  for  his 
double-mottoed  device.  Cardinal  Mazarin,  now 
at  the  point  of  death,  renewed  his  counsel  to  the 
young  king  never  to  let  will  thwart  his,  but  ever 
to  bear  the  sceptre  in  his  hand — in  his  own  hand 
alone.  So  Mazarin,  dealing  his  parting  thrust  of 
revenge  on  the  queen-regent,  died  in  the  castle  of 
Vincennes,  unregretted  by  any,  tolerated  of  later 
years,  but  despised  by  all.  Someone  made  his 
epitaph,  whose  concluding  lines  were  to  the  effect 
that  having  cheated  and  deceived  through  life,  he 
ended  with  cheating  the  devil  himself,  since,  when  he 
came  to  fetch  away  his  soul,  he  found  he  had  not  one. 

Madame  Scarron,  after  her  husband's  death, 
decided  to  live  in  the  same  apartments,  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  home  which  Ninon  offered  her  in  her 
own  house.  The  widow's  friends  obtained  for  her 
a  pension  of  two  thousand  livres,  and  she  continued 
the  old  reunions,  and  soon  recovered  from  the  loss 
she  had  sustained  ;  for  Frangoise  d'Aubigne*  was  ever 
distinguished  by  her  calm,  equable  temperament. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  177 

After  the  fete  at  Vaux,  Monsieur  Fouquet,  con- 
tinuing his  attentions  to  Mademoiselle  de  la  Baume, 
finally  asked  her  hand  in  marriage  of  her  parents. 
They  were  well  pleased,  especially  her  father. 
Madame  de  la  Baume  would  have  seemed  more  to 
favour  another  destiny  for  her  daughter.  The  king 
was  enraged  on  learning  the  superintendent's  pro- 
posal, but  Fouquet  braved  the  royal  displeasure, 
and  intended  to  take  his  bride  to  Holland.  So  the 
man  proposed ;  but  the  Fates  had  otherwise  dis- 
posed. Within  a  few  hours,  a  letter  was  brought 
him ;  he  broke  the  seal  hurriedly,  recognising  the 
beloved  handwriting,  and  when  he  had  read  the 
letter — but  two  lines  long — he  sank  back  in  his 
chair  as  if  a  thunder-stroke  had  smitten  him. 

"Renounce  me.  Think  of  me  no  more.  I  am  not 
worthy  to  be  the  wife  of  an  honest  man.  LOUISE." 

It  needed  no  more.  Fouquet  divined  the  truth, 
and  he  broke  into  a  storm  of  invective,  and  abuse 
of  the  king.  To  silence  him,  to  warn  him  of  the 
perils  surrounding  him,  of  his  many  bitter  and 
jealous  enemies,  of  the  clouds  of  witnesses,  false  and 
true,  ready  and  waiting  to  bring  charges  of  pecula- 
tion and  misappropriation  of  finances  against  him, 
was  of  no  avail.  The  fire  of  disappointed  love  con- 
sumed him,  and  he  raged  against  the  despoiler  of 
his  happiness.  The  jealous  king,  informed  by  those 
who  had  heard  Fouquet's  wild  words,  had  waited 
not  an  instant,  and  thirty  soldiers  of  the  Guard  were 
on  the  way  to  the  H6tel  of  the  Superintendence  to 
arrest  him ;  but  warned  of  their  coming,  he  made 
his  escape  from  the  house.  Too  late.  Before  he 

M 


178  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

could  reach  the  frontier  he  was  taken ;  and  in  the 
fortress  of  Pignerol  he  spent  nineteen  years  a 
prisoner,  after  a  protracted  trial  before  a  packed 
tribunal,  and  nobly  defended  by  Advocate  Pelisson, 
his  devoted  friend,  a  devotion  for  which  Pelisson 
suffered  long  imprisonment  in  the  Bastille. 

The  jealousy  of  Louis  in  regard  to  Mademoiselle 
la  Valliere,  however,  probably  only  hastened  the 
fall  of  the  man  on  whose  ruin  Colbert,  comptroller- 
general  of  finances,  and  his  successor,  had  long  been 
determined.  On  the  walls  of  that  magnificent  Vaux 
mansion  of  Fouq'uet's  was  painted  and  carved  his 
crest — a  squirrel  with  the  device,  "Quo  non 
ascendam  ?  "  This  squirrel  was  pursued  by  a  snake, 
and  on  the  arms  of  Colbert  was  also  a  snake. 

The  lavish  extravagance  of  Fouquet  was  almost 
beyond  the  bounds  of  credibility.  He  stopped 
before  no  expenditure  for  indulgence  of  his  own 
pleasure,  and  in  fairness  it  must  be  added,  for  that  of 
others.  Courteous  and  kindly,  intellectually  gifted, 
his  open-handed  generosity  to  men  of  letters  and 
of  talent  generally  was  boundless.  Like  our  own 
"  great  lord  cardinal,"  "  though  he  was  unsatisfied  in 
getting,  yet  in  bestowing  he  was  most  generous," 
and  again  and  again  he  aided  the  State  with  money 
from  his  own  private  means.  It  is  said  that  at  the 
fateful  entertainment  at  Vaux,  to  which  Louis  XIV. 
was  invited,  each  of  the  nobles  found  a  purse  of 
gold  in  his  bedchamber,  "and,"  adds  the  same 
writer,  "  the  nobles  did  not  forget  to  take  it  away." 
When  his  disgrace  came,  it  was  the  great  who 
deserted  him ;  the  people  of  talent  clung  through- 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  179 

out  to  their  friend  and  benefactor.  Colbert,  his 
deadliest  foe,  artfully  instilled  into  Louis  that  it 
was  the  ambition  of  Fouquet  to  be  prime  minister. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  this  was  true.  Colbert's 
ambition  for  the  post  was  not  less. 

On  his  arrest,  Fouquet  was  first  sent  to  the 
castle  of  Angers,  thence  to  Amboise,  thence  to 
Moret  and  Vincennes,  then  he  was  lodged  in  the 
Bastille,  and  finally,  on  his  condemnation,  to  the 
fortress  of  Pignerol.  After  a  three  years'  trial,  the 
advocate  -  general  demanded  that  he  should  be 
hanged  on  a  gallows  purposely  erected  in  the  court- 
yard of  the  Palais  de  Justice,  but  the  votes  for  his 
death  were  far  in  the  minority,  greatly  to  the  fury 
of  Louis  and  of  Colbert.  While  abuse,  however, 
and  charges  of  maladministration  of  the  finances 
were  brought  against  him,  peculation  could  not  in 
any  way  be  established.  In  a  generation  of  time- 
serving and  venality,  the  staunch  devotion  and  affec- 
tion of  Fouquet's  friends  remained  unchangeable. 
"  Never,"  wrote  Voltaire,  "did  a  placeman  have 
more  personal  friends  ;  never  was  persecuted  man 
better  served  in  his  misfortunes." 

Madame  de  S^vigne",  who  had  a  warm  regard  for 
Fouquet,  expresses  her  fear  in  more  than  one  of 
her  letters,  that  he  may  be  secretly  done  to  death 
by  poison  or  by  some  other  means  of  Colbert's  de- 
vising. His  friends  suffered  cruelly,  in  many  cases, 
for  their  loyalty  to  him.  The  gentleman,  Monsieur 
de  Roquesante,  who  had  spoken  in  favour  of  him — 
a  Provengal — was  banished  in  the  depths  of  winter 
to  the  chills  of  Lower  Brittany,  and  the  members  of 


i8o  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Fouquet's  family   were   scattered,    to   find   shelter 
where  they  could. 

At  Pignerol,  Fouquet  was  treated  with  great 
rigour.  Some  few  months  after  his  arrival  there, 
a  peril  of  another  kind  came  very  near  to  him. 
The  lightning  of  a  heavy  thunderstorm  struck  the 
powder-magazine  of  the  fortress,  and  it  exploded, 
burying  many  in  its  ruins.  Fouquet,  who  was 
standing  at  the  moment  in  the  recess  of  a  window, 
remained  unhurt.  Mystery  hangs  over  the  last 
days  of  his  life  ;  for  while  it  is  said  that  he  died  in  his 
captivity  at  Pignerol,  his  friend  Gourville  states  that 
he  was  set  at  liberty  before  his  death.  Voltaire  also 
declares  that  Fouquet's  daughter-in-law,  the  Com- 
tesse  de  Vaux,  confirmed  the  fact  of  this  to  him. 
Another  surmise,  and  one  that  found  wide  acceptance, 
is  that  although  he  was  liberated  for  a  while,  he  was 
rearrested,  and  that  it  was  he  who  was  the  mysterious 
individual  known  as  the  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask. 

Human  Nature  loves  a  mystery,  and  would  re- 
sent being  deprived  of  this  most  memorable  enigma 
in  modern  history,  by  any  reasonable  and  certain 
solution  of  it,  could  it  be  beyond  all  doubt  and 
question  established.  Again  and  again  it  has  been 
explained  and  explained  away,  but  it  is,  as  Galileo 
declared  of  the  earth  and  the  sun  :  e pur  se  muove. 
The  Man  in  the  Iron  Mask  stands  the  Man  in  the 
Iron  Mask — which  was,  in  fact,  not  of  iron,  at  all, 
but  of  stoutly-lined  velvet,  as  the  loups  and  masks 
of  the  time  nearly  always  were  made.  Probably  this 
mask  was  secured  by  extra  strong  springs  and 
fastenings,  as  mostly  was  the  case  for  prisoners  of 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  181 

distinction,  when  they  were  being  conveyed  from 
one  place  of  captivity  to  another. 

Such  kind  of  explanation  was  afforded  to  Ninon 
by  the  governor  of  the  Bastille  when  she  discussed 
the  point  with  him.  There  was,  he  said,  no  mystery 
at  all  in  it.  Yet  the  possibility  remains  that  it  did  not  suit 
the  governor  of  the  grim  old  prison-house  absolutely 
to  lift  the  veil  covering  its  secrets,  even  to  Ninon. 

It  has  been  contended  that  it  could  not  have  been 
Fouquet ;  since  the  Iron  Mask's  death  is  recorded 
in  the  register  of  the  Bastille,  where  he  was  con- 
fined for  the  last  five  years  of  his  life  in  November 
j  703,  and  Fouquet,  at  that  date,  would  have  been  in 
extreme  old  age,  which  this  prisoner  was  still  short 
of.  Not  being  Fouquet,  was  it  Count  Matthioli 
accused  of  betraying  the  French  Government,  in  the 
matter  of  putting  a  French  garrison  into  Casale  to 
defend  it  against  Spain  ?  Was  it  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth,  after  all  not  beheaded  in  England?  Was 
it  the  child  of  Buckingham,  the  bitter  fruit  of  his 
intrigue  with  Anne  of  Austria?  Was  it  the  twin 
brother  she  was  said  to  have  borne  with  Louis  XIV., 
as  Dumas  tells — he  who  was  taken  by  d'Artagnan 
from  the  Bastille,  and  placed  on  the  throne  of  France, 
while  the  other  Louis  was  shut  up  in  his  stead,  the 
substitution  remaining  undiscovered,  so  great  was 
the  resemblance  between  the  two — undetected  by  the 
queen,  Maria  Theresa,  herself.  The  romance  is  well 
founded,  but  even  for  the  great  master  of  romance  it 
goes  far.  Was  it —  No;  the  mystery,  like  Sheridan's 
quarrel,  is  "  a  very  pretty  mystery  as  it  stands. 
We  should  only  spoil  it  by  trying  to  explain  it." 


182  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Ninon  was  troubled  at  this  time  with  an  unsatis- 
factory, rather  casual  admirer,  Monsieur  le 
Comte  de  Choiseul,  an  individual  of  whom  it 
was  difficult  for  her  to  decide  whether  his  pertin- 
acity or  his  supreme  self-conceit  predominated. 
Monsieur  Pr6court,  the  celebrated  dancer,  an  inti- 
mate acquaintance  of  hers,  whom  she  one  morning 
invited  to  breakfast  with  her,  did  her  the  good 
service  of  finally  relieving  her  of  de  Choiseul's  in- 
commoding presence.  The  breakfast  was  laid  for 
two,  and  Choiseul,  entering,  was  about  to  seat  himself, 
whereupon  Prdcourt  claimed  the  place  at  table,  and 
Choiseul,  declining  to  stir,  Precourt  invited  him  to 
adjourn  to  the  neighbouring  boulevard  with  him,  and 
settle  the  matter  at  the  sword's-point.  Choiseul 
replied  that  he  did  not  fight  with  mountebanks. 
That  was  as  well,  Pre*court  retorted,  since  they 
might  make  him  dance ;  and  the  unwelcome  one  took 
his  hat,  went  out  from  the  house,  and  did  not  return. 

The  liaison  of  Louis  with  Mademoiselle  de  la 
Valliere  was  now  generally  known  ;  and  notwith- 
standing the  warning  of  the  disgrace  and  banish- 
ment of  St  Evr6mond,  satirical  rhymes  began  to 
circulate  at  the  expense  of  the  royal  favourite  and 
her  lover  Deodatus.  How  fortunate  he  was,  said 
Bussy  Rabutin,  "in  pressing  his  lips  on  that  wide 
beak,  which  stretched  from  ear  to  ear  "  ;  and  forth- 
with the  poet  found  himself  lodged  in  the  Bastille. 

Physically,  the  beauty  of  La  Valliere  was  not 
flawless.  Her  mouth  was  somewhat  large ;  but  it 
has  frequently  been  said,  that  somehow  the  defect 
of  her  lameness  only  added  to  the  grace  of  her 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  183 

movements,  which  were  at  once  so  gentle  and 
dignified,  while  her  magnificent,  dark  dreamy  eyes 
and  her  soft  winning  smile  rendered  her  singularly 
charming ;  and  if  Louis  ever  loved  any  but  himself, 
it  was  Louise  de  la  Valliere,  who  so  passionately 
loved,  not  Louis  the  king,  but  the  ardent  wooer  and 
winner  of  her  heart.  There  is  a  story  of  the  rose- 
tree  from  which  Louis  plucked  the  rose  which  he 
offered  her  on  that  ball  night  in  the  Louvre.  It 
had  been  cultivated  by  le  N6tre,  the  famous 
gardener  of  Versailles,  and  was  an  object  of  his 
tenderest  care ;  so  much  cherished,  that  he  was  far 
from  pleased  when  he  saw  the  king  pluck  its  loveliest 
blossom  for  la  Valliere.  She  regarded  the  rose-tree 
which  had  borne  it  with  the  tenderness  one  feels 
for  some  beloved  sentient  thing,  enlisting  le  Notre's 
interest  in  it,  which  in  its  way  was  as  great  as  her 
own  ;  and  wherever  she  went  to  spend  any  length  of 
days,  the  rose-tree  was  transported  in  its  box  of 
earth  to  the  gardens  of  the  palace — Versailles  or 
the  Louvre,  as  it  might  be — and  for  two  years  the 
beautiful  bush  flourished  under  the  joint  care  of  le 
Notre,  and  of  the  king's  beloved  mistress.  And  in 
her  gentle  confidences  with  Mademoiselle  Athenais 
de  Mortemar,  the  fiancte  of  Monsieur  le  Marquis 
de  Montespan,  with  whom  she  was  great  friends, 
she  told  her  the  romance  of  her  rose,  and  how  it 
was  her  belief,  her  superstition — call  it  what  you  will 
— that  while  it  flourished,  Louis's  love  would  be  hers. 
And  then  all  at  once  the  rose-tree  began  to  fade. 
Slowly  but  surely,  despite  all  the  skill  of  le  N6tre, 
rapidly  it  withered,  and  he  carried  a  handful  of  the 


184  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

earth  of  the  new  box,  into  which  he  had  trans- 
planted the  tree,  as  a  last  resource,  to  a  chemist  for 
analysation.  Nothing  more  simple :  vitriol  had 
been  poured  on  the  earth,  a  drop  or  two  at  a  time, 
and  the  root  was  corroded  to  dry  threads.  And 
for  la  Valliere,  it  was  only  left  to  make  a  little 
mausoleum  for  her  rose-tree  in  the  shadow  of  a 
retired  thicket  round  the  bosquets  of  Versailles — a 
little  crystal  globe  upon  a  low  marble  stand ;  and 
within  it,  in  a  box  exquisitely  enriched  with  gold 
filigree,  the  withered  rose-tree,  to  one  of  whose 
branches  was  fastened  the  faded  rose,  whose  petals 
still  hung  together ;  and  thither  to  the  secluded 
spot  every  day  came  la  Valliere  to  kneel  at  the 
tomb  of  her  rose-tree,  and  kiss  the  shadowy  souvenir 
of  the  love  that  had  faded  for  ever.  Just  a  few 
petals  left  of  its  countless  leaves,  so  sweet  and 
glowing  once  in  their  crimson  beauty. 

And  Mademoiselle  Athdnais  de  Mortemar's 
nuptials  with  Monsieur  le  Marquis  de  Montespan 
having  been  solemnised,  the  wife  was  left  by  the 
complaisant  husband  to  become  the  second  mistress 
of  Louis  XIV.,  and  this  ere  the  first  was  discarded, 
and  Maria  The'resa  still  a  youthful  wife.  The  two 
children  of  la  Valliere  the  king  legitimised  by  Act 
of  Parliament ;  but  soon  Louise  was  seen  no  more 
at  Court.  She  found  refuge  and  rest  for  weariness 
and  regrets  of  heart  and  spirit  within  convent  walls. 

And  now  Anne  of  Austria  succumbed  to  the  fell 
disease  which  had  insidiously  attacked  her,  and  she 
died,  and  was  borne  to  St  D£nis  with  great  pomp, 
followed  by  Louis  the  king,  clad  in  deepest  mourning. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

A  Fashionable  Water-cure  Resort — M.  de  Roquelaure  and  his 
Friends — Louis  le  Grand — "  A  Favourite  with  the  Ladies  " — 
The  Broken  Sword— A  Billet-doux— -La  Valliere  and 
la  Montespan — The  Rebukes  from  the  Pulpit — Putting  to 
the  Test— Le  Tartufe—The  Triumphs  of  Moliere— The 
Story  of  Clotilde. 

BY  the  advice  of  Guy  Patin,  Ninon's  constant 
friend  and  medical  adviser,  she  went  to  drink  the 
chalybeate  waters  of  Forges  les  Eaux,  in  Picardy. 
Not  that  there  was  the  least  thing  the  matter  with 
her  ;  only,  as  the  wise  doctor  said,  "  Prevention  was 
better  than  cure."  Besides,  well  or  ailing,  everybody 
of  any  consequence  went  there ;  it  was  the  thing 
to  do,  ever  since  Anne  of  Austria  had  taken  a 
course  of  the  waters,  and  a  short  time  after  had 
given  birth  to  the  child  Louis,  the  heir  to  the 
throne  of  France,  whose  coming  had  been  so  long 
hoped  for. 

Time  had  brought  its  sorrows  to  Ninon.  It 
had  treated  many  of  the  friends  of  earlier  years 
with  a  hand  less  sparing  than  its  touch  on  her. 
Among  those  passed  away  into  the  sleep  of  death, 
was  Madame  de  Choisy.  A  great  mutual  affection 
had  existed  between  the  two  women  ever  since  they 
had  first  met,  and  the  severance  saddened  Ninon. 
At  Forges,  she  knew  there  would  be  many  of  her 
friends  and  acquaintance,  old  and  new,  and  instead 
of  going  to  spend  the  spring  days  at  the  Picpus 

185 


186  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

cottage,  she  yielded  to  the  persuasions  of  Madame 
de  Montausier  and  of  Madame  de  la  Fayette,  and 
went  to  drink  the  waters,  mingle  in  its  comparatively 
mild  dissipations,  and  join  in  the  gay  school  for 
scandal  for  which  Forges  was  as  noted  as  are  the 
run  of  hydropathic  resorts.  It  lies  some  half-way 
between  Paris  and  the  coast  by  Dieppe.  One  of 
the  three  springs  it  contains  is  named  after  the 
queen,  presumably  the  one  which  brought  Louis 
the  Dieudonne",  and  the  other  two  are  called  respec- 
tively La  Royale  and  Le  Cardinal. 

Something  neglected  now,  the  place  was 
thronged  in  Ninon's  day,  every  season  with  a 
motley  crowd  of  varied  nationalities  and  conditions 
of  men  and  woman.  "  Parisians  and  provincials, 
nobles  and  citizen- folk,  monks  and  nuns,  English, 
Flemish,  Spaniards,  Christians  —  Catholics  and 
Hugenots  —  Jews,  Mohammedans,  every  one 
drinks  in  company  the  waters,  whose  detestable 
flavour  brings  your  heart  into  your  mouth.  This 
debauch  takes  place  at  six  o'clock  a.m." 

Then  began  a  promenade  in  the  avenue  of  the 
Capucin  garden,  thrown  open  to  the  public,  and 
tongues,  let  loose,  fell  to  work  upon  the  passing 
events  and  topics  and  reputations  and  no  reputa- 
tions. At  nine,  breakfast  drew  the  hungry  ones  to 
table,  and  Mass  the  devout.  All  the  morning  was 
spent  in  doing  nothing,  or  the  business  of  the 
toilette  ;  then  came  a  copious  dinner,  then  visit- 
ing and  more  chatter. 

At  five  began  the  theatre,  supplied  from  the 
Rouen  companies.  At  seven  was  supper,  then 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  187 

more  promenading,  concluding  with  litanies  sung 
in  the  monks'  chapel. 

The  Duchesse  of  Montpensier  was  among  the 
company — her  period  of  mourning  just  ended  for 
her  father,  who  had  died  at  Blois  in  the  preced- 
ing summer.  The  Grande  Mademoiselle  had 
been  seized  with  the  cacoethes  scribendi,  and 
treated  her  circle  with  readings  from  her  romances, 
La  Princesse  de  Paphlagonie,  L'lle  Imaginaire,  and 
a  series  of  Portraits,  for  which  style  of  composition 
there  was  a  rage  just  then.  Ninon  considered 
their  excellence  fell  very  short  of  Mademoiselle's 
martial  talents.  In  a  day  or  two  arrived  the  Due 
de  Roquelaure,  with  his  cousin  the  chevalier,  a 
personage  of  terror-striking  mien,  followed  every- 
where by  a  Monsieur  de  Romainville,  a  gouty, 
objectionable  individual,  as,  indeed,  not  much  more 
could  be  said  of  his  two  friends.  Instead  of  the 
waters,  he  drank  such  a  quantity  of  cider,  that  it 
aggravated  his  malady  to  the  extent  of  sending  for 
one  of  the  Capucin  confessors  ;  but  on  his  appear- 
ance the  chevalier  flourished  his  sword  at  him.  "  Be 
off  with  you,  my  father  !  "  he  cried.  "  He  has  lived 
like  a  heathen :  let  him  die  like  one  " ;  and  so  violently 
did  the  invalid  laugh  at  this  sally,  that  it  cured  him. 

One  day  the  chevalier  was  hectoring  over  the 
number  of  the  victims  of  his  doughty  sword-blade. 
4 'And  I  have,"  he  added,  "fought  at  least  fifty 
duels,  and  never  received  a  single  wound." 

"  Parbleu  !  my  dear  cousin,"  calmly  said  the  Due 
de  Roquelaure,  "  I  have  fought  only  one  duel  in 
all  my  life,  and  then  I  was  killed." 


i88  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

The  end  of  the  dog-days  closed  the  season  of 
Forges,  and  then  Ninon  returned  to  rue  des 
Tournelles. 

The  death  of  the  dowager-queen,  after  her  long 
illness  and  suffering,  brought  a  temporary  lull  in 
the  dissipations  and  rush  of  frivolity  at  the  Court. 
Moreover,  the  breaking-out  of  the  war  with  Spain, 
on  account  of  Louis  XIV.'s  claim  on  Flanders  in 
right  of  his  wife,  left  the  king  no  time  for  the  usual 
Court  routine.  And  then  it  was  that  he  showed 
himself  a  king  indeed,  leading  his  troops  to  victory. 
In  three  weeks,  with  Conde — once  again  completely 
in  favour,  all  his  revolts  no  longer  remembered — 
and  Turenne,  whom  Louis  told  that  it  was  his  wish 
to  learn  from  him  the  art  of  war,  Franche  Comte 
was  conquered.  It  was  the  dawn  of  a  brilliant 
series  of  victories,  and  of  the  glory  and  power  of 
the  France  of  Louis's  earlier  years. 

And  now  came  a  strange  wooing,  begun  un- 
deniably on  the  part  of  the  lady — no  less  a 
personage  than  the  Grande  Mademoiselle,  now 
arrived  at  the  discreet  age  of  forty-two — when 
she  fell  in  love  with  Monsieur  de  Lauzun,  colonel 
of  the  just  created  first  regiment  of  dragoons,  one 
of  the  many  distinctions  conferred  on  him  by  Louis. 
Youngest  son  of  a  noble  Gascon  family — described 
by  Bussy  Rabutin  as  "  one  of  the  least  men  in 
mind  as  well  as  body  that  God  ever  created " — 
elsewhere  he  is  pictured  to  us  as  one  having  a 
sort  of  talent,  which,  however,  consisted  in  turning 
everything  and  everybody  into  ridicule,  worming 
out  their  secrets,  and  playing  upon  their  foibles. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  189 

He  was  noble  in  his  carriage,  and  lived  in  splendid 
style.  He  loved  high  play,  and  played  like  a 
gentleman.  His  figure  was  very  diminutive,  and 
it  is  incomprehensible  how  he  could  ever  become 
a  favourite  with  the  ladies ;  but  that  he  was  in  a 
notable  degree.  The  Duchesse  de  Montpensier 
conceived  a  passionate  admiration  for  this  little 
gentleman ;  she  who  had  aspired  to  be  queen  of 
France,  or  empress  of  Germany,  and  had  refused 
the  crown  of  England,  went  folle  for  love  of 
Antoninus  de  Caumont,  Count  de  Lauzun. 

This,  however,  was  not  the  beginning  of  his 
career  at  Court,  where  he  had  been  introduced  by 
his  relation,  the  Mardchal  de  Grammont.  Small 
as  Lauzun  was,  he  bore  himself  splendidly  ;  he  had 
the  grand  air  which  Louis  so  greatly  admired,  and 
it  helped  to  win  him  almost  boundless  consideration 
from  the  king.  When  the  mastership  of  the 
Ordnance  became  vacant,  Louis  promised  it  to 
him ;  on  condition,  however,  that  for  the  present 
Lauzun  should  keep  the  matter  a  secret.  This  was 
seeking  too  much  of  his  vanity  and  boastfulness, 
and  the  secret  being  one  no  longer,  reached  the 
ears  of  the  minister  Louvois,  who  at  once  went  to  the 
king,  and  with  much  good  sense  and  grave  reason- 
ing over  the  unwisdom  of  such  an  appointment, 
persuaded  His  Majesty  to  withdraw  his  promise. 
Lauzun  thereupon  burst  into  the  king's  presence,  wild 
with  rage,  hurled  a  storm  of  reproaches  on  him,  and 
taking  his  own  sword,  he  snapped  it  across  his  knee, 
vowing  that  he  would  never  again  serve  a  prince 
who  broke  his  word  in  such  shameful  fashion. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  I  should  be  sorry,"  said  Louis,  crossing  with 
dignified  steps  to  the  open  window,  and  throwing 
his  cane  out  of  it,  "  to  have  struck  a  man  of 
rank  "  ;  but  the  next  morning  Lauzun  was  lodged 
in  the  Bastille.  Only  for  a  short  time  however. 
Louis,  in  a  sense,  had  broken  his  word  ;  but  Lauzun, 
on  his  part,  had  violated  conditions,  and  the  young 
man  was  forgiven,  and  by  way  of  indemnity  was 
offered  the  captaincy  of  the  Royal  Guards,  which 
he  at  first  insolently  refused,  and  only  accepted 
under  entreaty. 

It  was  after  his  release  from  the  Bastille  that 
this  most  Gascon  of  Gascon  gentlemen  became  the 
object  of  the  Grande  Mademoiselle's  ardent  admira- 
tion. At  first  it  was  he  who  coquetted,  affecting  not  to 
understand,  observing  only  the  airs  of  profoundest 
respect,  just  touched  with  melancholy,  and  permit- 
ting himself  a  very  occasional  sigh.  Then  one  day 
Mademoiselle  murmured  to  the  handsome  dragoon 
captain — "  I  do  not  dare,  in  your  presence,  to  utter 
the  name  of  him  I  love ;  but  I  consent  to  writing 
it." 

And  the  next  night,  during  the  performance  of  a 
ballet  at  the  Louvre,  she  glided  near  to  Lauzun, 
and  slipped  a  paper  into  his  hand.  It  bore  only 
these  words — "  //  is  you." 

Then  it  was  a  very  different  affair.  Who  so 
ardent,  and  passionately  in  love  as  Lauzun  ? 
Carried  away  by  his  feelings,  he  broke  into  the 
bedchamber  of  Mademoiselle  unannounced,  and 
falling  at  her  feet  where  she  sat  before  a  mirror,  in 
the  scantiest  of  d£shabill&,  eloquently  gave  way  to 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  191 

expressions  of  rapture,  and  the  good  fortune  which 
had  impelled  him  to  seek  her  at  such  a  delightful 
moment,  when  her  charms  lay  revealed  in  all  the 
fulness  of  their  beauty.  The  Grande  Mademoiselle 
was  thin  to  scragginess — but  quimporte  ? 

She  believed  his  protestations,  loved  Lauzun 
ever  more  and  more,  and  passed  her  time  in  devis- 
ing the  way  for  obtaining  the  king's  consent  to 
their  union. 

Meanwhile  the  king's  conduct,  in  publicly  taking 
about  with  him  his  two  mistresses,  was  beginning  to 
create  such  gross  scandal,  that  it  called  down  forcible 
rebuke  from  the  pulpits.  In  regard  to  la  Montespan, 
while  her  husband  must  have  been  dense  indeed 
not  to  be  aware  of  the  true  state  of  the  case,  he 
was  allowed  to  be  credited  with  the  ignorance  of  it. 
Among  the  preachers  most  severe  in  their  rebuke, 
was  the  Pere  Bourdaloue,  the  eloquent  Jesuit.  He 
spared  no  word  in  endeavouring  to  bring  Louis  to 
some  sense  of  decent  living,  and  it  was  not 
without  effect — before  all,  on  Louise  de  la  VallieYe, 
whose  weeping  was  audible  from  where  she  sat  in 
a  dark  corner  of  the  Jesuit  church  of  St  Louis. 

Ninon,  whose  orthodoxy  was  not  rigid,  and  had 
found  herself  only  too  often  sufficiently  well  justified 
in  the  small  faith  she  placed  in  the  religious  pro- 
fessions coming  within  her  experience,  determined 
on  the  bold  amusement  of  testing  the  sincerity  of 
Bourdaloue.  She  pretended  to  be  seriously  ill,  and 
sent  to  him  to  visit  her,  in,  of  course,  his  spiritual 
capacity.  Dressed  in  the  most  becoming  of  invalid 
ntgligds,  she  received  the  priest  with  all  her 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

winning  smiles  and  words  and  fascinating  glances. 
They  were  absolutely  ineffective.  Bourdaloue  having 
completed  his  exhortations  and  pious  counsels,  rose 
to  take  his  leave,  observing,  as  he  departed,  that 
he  perceived  the  malady  afflicting  Ninon  was  not 
of  the  body,  but  of  the  spirit,  and  that  he  would 
beseech  the  great  Healer  of  souls  to  cure  her. 

The  tale  of  this  interview  got  wind,  and  brought 
down  some  satirical  verses  on  Ninon's  defeat — 
which  she  frankly  acknowledged,  not  even  without 
considerable  content ;  for  it  taught  her  that  the 
religious  profession  was  not  one  vast  fraud,  but 
that  the  Church  might  have  many  true  shepherds  of 
its  fold,  cumbered  as  it  might  be  with  the  false 
and  venal. 

Among  these  last  she  had  signalised  Mon- 
seigneur  d'Autun,  apparently  with  reason  enough. 
He  was  a  mild-mannered,  smiling  prelate,  with  a 
paternal,  beneficent  air,  one  who  had  several  times 
changed  sides  in  the  days  of  the  Fronde.  Ninon 
had  first  met  him  at  that  time  at  the  house  of 
Madame  de  Longueville,  and  thenceforward  he  was 
one  of  the  circle  of  rue  des  Tournelles.  Frequently 
he  had  begged  or  borrowed,  "  for  the  poor,"  consider- 
able sums  of  money  from  his  open-handed  hostess  ; 
but  Ninon  entertained  doubts  of  the  bishop's 
saintliness,  and  one  day  they  were  set  at  rest  beyond 
all  question  by  the  conclusions  he  drew  from 
certain  arguments  he  had  propounded  to  her.  Then 
throwing  off  the  mask  of  the  virtuous  living  he 
professed,  he  boldly  declared  his  passionate  admir- 
ation for  her.  That  a  man  of  the  world  would  have 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  193 

been  repulsed  by  Ninon  is  not  very  probable  ;  but 
she  felt  the  instinctive  aversion  for  the  touch  of 
some  insidious,  poisonous  reptile,  and  she  shrank 
from  him,  and  ordered  him  from  her  presence ; 
and  departing,  Monseigneur  d'Autun  looked  the 
vengeance  his  muttered  words  threatened. 

In  discussing  with  Moliere  her  experiences  of 
more  than  one  distinguished  prelate,  Richelieu  and 
Mazarin  not  forgotten,  she  asked  him  how  it  was 
possible  to  discern  the  true  from  the  false  ? 

Moliere  replied  that  there  was  nothing  more 
easy,  and  with  Ninon's  permission  to  introduce  her 
latest  clerical  admirer,  he  would  put  the  answer  to 
her  question  before  her  in  less  than  six  weeks. 
He  had  her  joyous  consent,  and  the  answer  within 
the  given  time.  It  was  Le  Tartufe. 

Moliere's  recent  plays  had  raised  him  to  the 
height  of  his  fame.  He  suffered  from  the  usual 
gnat-bites  and  little  stings  of  jealousy  inseparable 
from  literary  success.  The  critics  did  their  spite- 
fullest.  The  critics,  said  Moliere,  were  like  the 
children  who  can  whip  horses,  but  cannot  drive 
them. 

Moliere's  life,  apart  from  its  work,  was  more 
than  incomplete  ;  it  was  a  cruel  one.  The  wife  he 
had  chosen,  Madeleine  Be'jart,  the  daughter  of  an 
actress  of  his  company,  was  a  silly,  ignorant  little 
coquette,  in  no  way  worthy  of  him,  and  constantly 
giving  him  cause  for  jealousy. 

On  the  production  of  Tartufe,  the  plaudits  rang 
again  and  again  from  floor  to  ceiling.  Veluti  in 
speculum.  The  cap  fitted  many  heads  so  admirably, 

N 


194  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

so  entirely,  that  the  comedy  created  the  author  a 
host  of  enemies  among  the  bigots  and  the  hypo- 
crites whom  his  satire  so  vigorously  lashed.     Orgon, 
who  has  seen  at  church  a  young  man  who  conducts 
himself  with  such  a  devout  air  that  he  believes  in 
its  genuineness,  and  receives  him  into  his  own  family, 
which   he   neglects    in   his   great    admiration    for 
Tartufe.     He  is  on  the  point  even  of  proposing  to 
give  him  his  daughter  in  marriage,  when,  hidden 
under  a  table,  concealed  by  a  deep,  trailing  table- 
cloth,  he   overhears   his   prot^g6's   declaration    of 
passion  for  El  mire,  his  own  wife.     "  Mais,  madame, 
apres  tout^je  ne  suispas  un  ange"  says  Tartufe.     The 
scene  is   inimitable,  with   its   crowning  picture   of 
Orgon's  face  of  mingled  rage  and  smiling  satisfaction, 
peering  up  from  the  folds  of  the  tablecloth  at  the  dis- 
comfited scoundrel,  whom  he  forthwith  turns  out  of 
the  house.   Tartufe's  endeavour  to  circumvent  Orgon 
only  brings  condign  punishment  on  the  impostor, 
who  is   sent   to   expiate   his   misdeeds   in    prison. 
Shallow  pretence  and  profession  of  piety,  shibboleths 
the  world  has  always  with  it ;  and  the  truth  of  the 
picture  struck   home  with  such  a  shock,  that  the 
piece   ran   in   perilous   risk   of  being   condemned. 
The  king,  however,  commanded  a  representation  of 
it   at   Versailles.       "  Le  roi  le  veut,  and  unfading 
laurels  crown  Tartufe." 

Louis  was  delighted  with  this  comedy ;  although 
it  had  been  Mazarin's  deplorable  policy  to  leave  his 
higher  intelligence  and  taste  so  little  cultivated, 
these  were  naturally  capable  of  appreciating  the  wit 
and  humour  of  Moliere's  work,  and  it  formed  a  shield 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  195 

of  protection  against  the  dramatist's  many  bitter 
enemies.  The  king  gave  him  a  pension  from  his  own 
private  purse,  and  Moliere  was  an  honoured  guest 
at  his  table.  The  money  accruing  from  his  own 
labour,  alone  brought  competence.  He  had  a  country 
house  at  Auteuil,  where  he  entertained  many  dis- 
tinguished persons,  and  found  a  little  rest  from  the 
arduous  demands  of  his  profession.  The  Prince  de 
Conde  also  took  great  delight  in  his  society.  Many 
a  munificent  act  to  youthful  or  struggling  efforts  of 
genius  the  popular  and  admired  dramatist  and 
comedian  performed  in  secret,  and  ever  without 
ostentation.  Perhaps  but  for  him  Racine  would 
never  have  been  heard  of.  The  poet  was  nineteen 
when  Moliere  encouraged  him  to  carry  through  his 
Theagene  et  Chariclee,  a  piece  too  weak  for  stage 
production,  but  for  which  Moliere  made  him  a 
present  of  a  hundred  louis,  and  further  gave  him 
the  scenario  for  Les  Freres  Ennemis. 

The  actor  Baron  was  another  star  in  the  dramatic 
firmament  owing  its  brilliancy  to  Moliere.  Baron, 
like  Garrick,  excelled  in  both  tragedy  and  comedy ; 
and  Moliere  loved  him  as  if  he  had  been  his  own 
son.  One  day  Baron  pleaded  with  him  for  a  poor 
country  actor,  who  wanted  enough  money  to  take 
him  to  rejoin  his  troupe.  He  was  an  old  fellow- 
comedian  of  Moliere's  ;  his  name  was  Mondorge. 
"How  much  does  he  require?"  asked  Moliere. 
Baron  thought  four  pistoles  would  meet  the  case. 
4 'Give  him  four  pistoles  from  me  then,"  said 
Moliere,  "  and  here  are  twenty  besides,  which  you 
can  say  are  from  you."  To  this  he  added  a  hand- 


196  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

some  suit  of  clothes  ;  and  in  such  ways  shone  the 
worth  of  the  actor-dramatist  in  a  naughty  world. 

It  was  Moliere  who  exclaimed—"  Ou  la  vertu, 
va-t'-elle  se  nicher  ?  "  one  day,  when  he  gave  alms  to 
some  poor  creature,  and  the  man,  finding  it  to  be  a 
louis  d'or,  thought  that  it  had  been  given  in  mistake, 
and  ran  after  him  to  give  it  back. 

The  Duchesse  de  Montpensier,  who  had  in- 
herited the  palace  of  the  Luxembourg  from  her 
father,  was  now  spending  some  months  in  it,  chiefly 
occupied  in  endeavouring  to  bring  the  king  to 
consent  to  her  marriage  with  Monsieur  de  Lauzun. 
She  invited  Ninon  to  go  and  stay  with  her,  and  in 
all  good  faith,  and  unsuspicious  of  any  special  signifi- 
cance attaching  to  the  visit,  Ninon  went ;  and  as 
far  as  Mademoiselle  was  concerned,  no  treachery 
was  intended.  Nevertheless,  the  duchesse  had  been 
drawn  into  a  deep-laid  scheme  for  humbling  Ninon 
to  the  dust,  by  trying  to  make  her  the  means  of 
bringing  her  to  draw  her  own  daughter  into  the 
ways  of  life  which  she  herself  had  followed,  but 
from  which,  more  and  more  as  time  passed,  the 
sense  of  its  evil  revolted  her.  Sixteen  years  had 
flown  since  she  had  lost  sight  of  the  child ;  after 
making  but  a  half-hearted  endeavour  to  find 
it.  The  whirl  of  gaiety  and  excitement  in  which 
she  was  then  living,  had  quickly  dragged  her  back 
into  its  vortex;  but  Madame  de  Fiesque,  though 
she  had  affected  ignorance,  knew  where  the  young 
girl  was,  and  artfully  cultivating  herself  into  the 
graces  of  La  Grande  Mademoiselle,  she  had  now  con- 
trived to  introduce  her  into  the  palace,  in  the  guise  of 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  197 

a  young  female  dependant,  of  whom  she  made  a  sort 
of  humble  companion  or  waiting-maid.      The  girl 
was  evidently  as  unhappy  as  she  certainly  was  very 
beautiful;  and  Ninon,  interested  and  touched  with 
pity  for   her,  entered   into  conversation  with   her, 
which  elicited  the  fact  that  she  had  a  lover — one, 
however,    so   far   above  her  in   station,    that   any 
honourable  alliance  was  not  to  be  dreamed  of,  for  all 
the  young  girl's  heart  was  pure,  and  young  Monsieur 
de  Perceval  was  no  profligate.     Finding  that  it  was 
intended,    or   rather   said  to   be   intended,   that   a 
marriage  was  to  be  effected  between  Clotilde  and 
one  of  the  palace  cooks,  Ninon  took  her  under  her 
protection  and  shelter  to  the   rue  des   Tournelles. 
This  was  precisely  falling   in  with  the  designs  of 
Madame  de  Fiesque,  whose  idea  was  that  Ninon 
would  lead  Clotilde,  ignorant  of  who  she  was,  into 
the  free  courses  of  living  she  herself  had  followed, 
and  indeed  still  followed  ;  but  herein  lay  the  mis- 
take of  Madame  de  Fiesque.     Little  by  little,  sus- 
picion that  Clotilde  was    no   other   than  her  own 
daughter   grew   to   certainty  ;    and   that   the    girl 
should  be  exposed  to,  or  made  the  victim  of,  the  many 
miseries  and  evils  underlying  the  glitter  of  her  own 
career,   was   the   one   thing  the  bitterly-repenting 
mother   determined   should    never    be.     And   she 
devised  a  counterplot,  which  she   confided  to  the 
Duchesse  de    Montpensier,  who  warmly   lent   her 
countenance   to    its    carrying    out.     Monsieur   de 
Perceval  was  a  relative  of  Madame  de  Montausier, 
whose  sincere  friendship  for  Ninon,  her  sympathy 
with  her  in  the  distress  of  mind  she  was  suffering, 


198  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

and  lastly,  and  perhaps  not  least,  the  splendid  dot  of 
the  Loches  estate,  worth  300,000  livres,  which  Ninon 
was  prepared  to  bestow  on  Clotilde,  smoothed  the 
way  to  the  marriage  of  the  two  lovers.  They  were 
wedded  quietly,  and  then  travelled  abroad  for  two 
years  ;  so  that  the  plotters  found  no  chance  of  inter- 
fering with  their  happiness.  As  to  who  Clotilde 
really  was,  those  interested  were  content  with  the 
supposition  that  she  was  some  connexion  of  an 
illustrious  family,  about  whom  it  was  nobody's 
affair  to  inquire  more  nearly.  From  time  to  time 
in  after  years  Ninon  saw  Clotilde  again,  but  she 
put  a  strong  curb  on  her  natural  feelings,  and  never 
disclosed  her  identity. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

A  Disastrous  Wooing — Fenelon — "Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  " 
—The  Pride  that  had  a  Fall— The  Death  of  the  Duchesse 
d'Orleans — Intrigue — The  Sun-King  and  the  Shadows — The 
Clermont  Scholar's  Crime — Monsieur  de  Montespan — 
Tardy  Indignation — The  Encounter — The  Filles  R'epenties 
—What  the  Cards  Foretold. 

THE  episode  of  Clotilde  could  but  forcibly  remind 
Ninon  of  the  son  whom  his  father,  Monsieur  de 
Gersay,  had  taken  away  so  shortly  after  his  birth,  to 
rear  as  his  own  exclusively,  but  of  whom,  unlike 
Clotilde,  she  had  not  entirely  lost  traces.  On  the 
contrary,  she  knew  that  the  Marquis  de  Gersay 
lived  the  most  of  his  time  on  his  own  estates  in 
Brittany,  and  that  therefore  Charles,  as  the  child 
had  been  named,  was  likely  to  be  with  him  ;  and 
Ninon  wrote  to  the  marquis,  begging  for  some  in- 
telligence of  the  young  man — for  he  was  now  two- 
and-twenty.  De  Gersay  informed  her  that  he  had 
taken  the  necessary  steps  for  legitimatising  him, 
and  that  he  was  called  the  Chevalier  de  Villiers. 
He  added  that  the  secret  of  his  birth  was  entirely 
unknown  to  the  young  man,  who  was  a  fine,  hand- 
some fellow,  and  very  amiable  and  intelligent,  only 
needing  to  rub  off  the  little  corners  of  his  provincial 
rearing  to  be  perfection.  The  marquis  added  that 
it  would  please  him  very  well  to  bring  him  to  Paris 
and  introduce  him  into  the  circle  of  Ninon's  friends, 
so  famous  for  its  refinement  and  elegance ;  but  it 

199 


200  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

was  on  the  condition  that  the  origin  of  his  birth 
should  be  religiously  concealed. 

And  when  young  de  Villiers  arrived  in  Paris, 
Ninon  received  him  in  her  salon,  as  she  received 
other  young  people  who  sought  entry  there,  or  for 
whom  it  was  sought,  that  they  might  acquire  the 
tone  of  good  society  and  le  bon  gout.  Ninon  was 
then  over  sixty  years  of  age.  Whether,  as  it  is 
said,  she  absolutely  retained  all  the  beauty  and 
freshness  of  her  youth,  may  perhaps  be  taken  cum 
grano  salis  ;  but  that  much  of  it  clung  about  her  with 
all  the  charm  of  her  manner,  seems  indisputable, 
since  she  fascinated  the  young  man  of  twenty-two. 

He  fell  passionately  in  love  with  her ;  but  for  a 
long  time  he  maintained  silence,  until  he  could  con- 
ceal his  love  no  longer,  and  Ninon  could  no  longer 
remain  blind  to  the  true  state  of  the  case.  She 
was  deeply  distressed  and  perplexed.  She  assumed 
a  sort  of  maternal  tenderness  towards  him,  which 
had  simply  the  effect  of  heating  the  young  man's 
ardour  to  frenzy,  and  she  was  forced  to  forbid  him 
her  house.  Fear  of  never  seeing  her  again,  drove 
him  to  say  that  he  would  cease  to  love  her.  Love 
forced  him  to  do  this,  and  to  this  promise  love  made 
him  false.  The  excess  of  his  passion  would  not 
permit  him  to  exist  longer  in  a  state  of  doubt.  He 
sought  a  last  interview  of  her.  Ninon  had  gone  to 
her  country-house,  and  thither  he  followed.  He 
found  her  alone,  and  spoke  like  a  man  driven,  as 
indeed  he  was,  to  desperation.  Ninon,  overcome 
with  pity,  overwhelmed  with  grief  at  being  the  cause 
of  her  son's  misery,  could  no  longer  maintain  her 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  201 

firmness,  and  young  de  Villiers,  believing  that  the 
moment  of  his  happiness  had  arrived,  approached 
her  with  passionate  gestures.  Seized  with  horror, 
she  shrank  from  him  and  told  him  the  truth.  "  I 
am  your  mother  !  "  she  cried  in  her  distress.  One 
instant  de  Villiers  stood  as  if  thunderstruck  ;  then  he 
turned  and  rushed  into  the  garden,  hurrying  blindly 
on  till  he  reached  the  little  thicket  at  the  end  of  it. 
There,  in  his  despair,  he  drew  his  sword  and 
stabbed  himself  to  the  death. 

Ninon  waited,  and  when  he  did  not  return,  she 
went  in  search  of  him,  to  find  him  weltering  in  his 
own  blood.  He  was  still  breathing,  and  strove  to 
speak  ;  but  his  words  were  undistinguishable.  The 
passionate  love  he  felt  for  her  still  burned  in  his 
eyes  ;  but  the  agitation  her  tenderness  and  despair 
occasioned  him,  only  hastened  the  end,  and  he  died 
in  her  arms. 

The  horror  of  this  tragedy  nearly  drove  Ninon 
to  take  away  her  own  life.  Her  pitying  friends 
strove  to  bring  some  assuagement  to  her  suffer- 
ings, and  Madame  Scarron  nursed  her  in  the 
long  illness  which  ensued,  and  her  gentle,  tender 
ways  and  words,  and  her  manner  of  winning 
Ninon  to  speak  of  the  unhappy  lost  one,  at  last 
brought  tears  to  her  eyes,  parched  with  her  mental 
agony,  and  so  relief  came,  and  Fran9oise  Scarron, 
weeping  with  her,  was  then  her  best  friend.  It 
was  she  who  ordered  a  mausoleum  tomb  for  the 
dead.  It  was  placed  where  Charles  de  Villiers 
had  been  interred,  a  monument  of  black  marble. 
Night  and  day  the  tapers  burned  around  it,  and 


202  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

many  an  hour  in  prayer  Ninon  knelt  beside  the 
last  resting-place  of  Charles  de  Villiers. 

At  this  time,  Madame  Scarron,  hitherto  very 
far  from  a  devotee,  introduced  to  her  a  young 
priest  of  St  Sulpice.  His  name  was  de  la  Mothe 
Fenelon.  His  touching  words  and  sincere,  gentle 
sympathy  brought  healing  as  time  passed  ;  but  the 
shadow  of  sorrow  and  suffering  never  fully  lifted 
— the  gay,  frivolous  Ninon  was  known  no  more. 
Henceforth,  till  death,  she  was  Mademoiselle  de 
L'Enclos,  bearing  herself  with  dignity,  self-re- 
strained, and  esteemed  by  most. 

The  consent  of  the  king  to  the  marriage  of 
Lauzun  and  the  Grande  Mademoiselle  having  been 
at  last  wrung  from  him,  Lauzun  grew  insufferable. 
His  pride  was  boundless.  Except  to  the  king,  he 
would  not  even  doff  his  hat.  He  occupied  himself 
exclusively  in  arranging  the  details  of  the  festivities 
and  ceremonial  of  the  marriage. 

But  his  enemies  were  at  work.  His  folly  and 
vanity  had  created  a  host  of  them,  and  among  them 
were  the  powerful  Louvois,  and  the  vindictive  and 
ambitious  favourite,  Madame  de  Montespan, 
whom  he  had  frequently  grossly  insulted  ;  while 
Louvois  found  himself  constantly  thwarted  and 
provoked  by  him.  Madame  de  Montespan,  think- 
ing over  the  matter  of  Mademoiselle's  marriage, 
decided  that  her  vast  property  would  be  much 
better  disposed  among  the  eight  children  she  had 
brought  the  king,  than  in  the  pockets  of  Lauzun, 
and  finding  a  supporter  in  Louvois,  she  represented 
the  case  to  His  Majesty,  the  result  being  that  he 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  203 

withdrew  his  consent  to  the  marriage,  and  de 
Lauzun  was  lodged  in  the  Bastille,  his  character 
blackened — no  such  difficult  matter — by  the  two. 
The  friends  of  the  lovers  had  warned  them  of  the 
imminent  possibility  of  this ;  and  it  was  believed 
that  they  accepted  the  advice,  and  contrived  to  be 
privately  married.  De  Lauzun  vented  his  wrath  for 
the  promise — this  time  so  undisputedly  broken — 
by  denouncing  Madame  de  Montespan  for  her  wifely 
unfaithfulness  to  her  husband  ;  but  it  did  not  hinder 
his  imprisonment,  which  he  spent  for  five  years  in 
the  fortress  of  Pignerol,  that  dreary  stronghold  of 
deportation  for  offending,  blue-blooded  courtiers. 
He  was  conducted  thither  by  Monsieur  d'Artagnan, 
lieutenant  of  the  Guards.  Five  years'  further  in- 
carceration after  this  in  Pignerol  was  allotted  him  ; 
though  on  conditions  slightly  ameliorated.  The 
treatment  had  first  been  hard  in  the  extreme,  and 
had  rigidly  condemned  him  to  one  cell. 

Sympathy  extended  only  to  the  disconsolate 
Mademoiselle,  the  victim  of  an  ambitious  coxcomb, 
and  of  a  venal,  faithless  woman. 

Attention  was,  however,  soon  turned  entirely 
from  this  affair,  by  the  terrible  and  sudden  death 
of  Henrietta,  the  Duchesse  d'Orldans  of  England — 
daughter  of  King  Charles  I. — the  amiable  and  uni- 
versally beloved  wife  of  the  king's  brother,  the 
Due  d'Orteans. 

She  was  one  evening  enjoying  the  cool  air  on 
the  great  balcony  of  the  palace  of  St  Cloud,  in 
company  with  her  ladies,  and  requested  one  of  them 
to  fetch  her  a  glass  of  chicory  water  from  her 


204  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

apothecary.  The  apothecary  arrived  in  a  few 
moments  with  an  enamelled  goblet  containing  the 
drink,  which  he  presented  to  her.  Scarcely  had 
she  drunk  it,  than  she  was  seized  with  violent  con- 
vulsive agony,  and  cried  out  that  she  was  poisoned. 

They  carried  her  to  the  nearest  bedchamber, 
and  laying  her  down,  loosened  her  clothes,  and 
administered  all  the  usual  restoratives ;  but  in  vain. 
Already  her  face  and  limbs  were  livid  and  dis- 
torted. "  I  am  poisoned — I  have  drunk  poison  !  " 
was  all  she  was  able  to  utter. 

The  king  came  hurrying  to  the  bedside,  followed 
by  his  physicians,  whom  he  had  hastily  summoned. 
They  examined  the  agonised  woman,  grew  them- 
selves pale  with  dismay,  and  remained  silent. 

"  Where  are  your  senses  ?  "  demanded  the  king, 
in  an  access  of  distressful  alarm.  "  It  is  frightful  to 
let  a  woman  die  like  this,  and  not  be  able  to  afford 
any  help." 

The  doctors  only  looked  at  each  other,  and  still 
did  not  utter  a  word. 

Madame  herself  entreated  for  an  emetic,  but 
Monsieur  Valet,  physician-in-chief,  declared  that  it 
would  be  dangerous.  She  had  been  seized,  he 
said,  with  the  miserere — the  term  generally  then 
used  for  cholera  morbus. 

Against  these  silent  impotent  healers  of  the 
body,  the  physician  of  the  soul  was  sent  for.  He 
came.  It  was  Monsieur  1'Abbe"  Bossuet,  and  amid 
his  pious,  gentle  consolations  Madame  passed  away. 
It  was  also  Bossuet  who  pronounced  the  funeral 
oration  a  day  or  two  later. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  205 

"  Madame  is  dead! — Madame  is  dead!"  So 
the  terrible  words  rang  forth  in  the  presence  of 
the  king  and  the  assembled  half-stunned  courtiers. 

That  Madame  was  universally  beloved  had  an 
exception  to  its  ruling.  He  who  should  have  best 
loved  her,  the  duke  himself,  was  indifferent  to  her. 
Scandal,  busy  with  his  name,  said  worse — said 
so  much  that  was  shameful,  that  it  is  not  to  be 
repeated  here.  It  said  so  much,  that  the  king,  who 
was  aware  of  it,  had  already  ordered  the  immediate 
departure  of  the  chevalier  de  Lorraine  from  Paris, 
a  dismissal  that  was  to  be  final.  This  minion  of  the 
duke  had  been  furious  at  the  command,  and  accused 
Madame  as  the  cause  of  it,  and  she  had  simply 
laughed  at  the  accusation.  The  day  following  her 
death,  the  chevalier  de  Lorraine,  it  was  asserted, 
was  seen,  wrapped  in  a  long  riding-cloak,  and  his 
face  concealed  by  a  hat  whose  broad  brims  were 
drawn  down  low  over  his  brows,  riding  hastily  by 
the  path  of  the  gate  of  St  Cloud,  and  so  by  the 
roads  to  the  frontier.  He  was  known  to  be  a  great 
friend  of  Monsieur  de  Luxembourg,  and  at  a  later 
day  more  than  suspicion  implicated  Monsieur  de 
Luxembourg  in  the  most  notorious  poison  cause 
cel&bre  of  its  century. 

The  Court  of  Louis  XIV.  was  now  one  vast 
spider's-web  of  intrigue,  woven  from  the  lust  and 
greed  of  so  many  of  those  surrounding  him.  It 
was  the  Nemesis  of  his  policy  of  drawing  all  the 
nobility  and  provincial  seigneurs  from  far  and  near 
to  Versailles.  If  these  were  not  lured  into  the 
brilliance  of  the  Sun- King's  presence,  and  desired 


2o6  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

to  live  on  their  estates,  it  was  next  to  an  impossi- 
bility to  do  so,  under  fear  of  being  suspected  of 
plotting  against  the  throne.  They  were  required 
to  group  themselves  all  round  the  great  orb, 
gathering  from  it  the  lustre  beyond  which  all  was 
obscurity,  and  this  rarely  enough  to  be  done,  even  in 
Paris,  but  only  at  Versailles.  Louis  did  not  love  the 
Louvre.  He  had  never  forgotten  that  in  the  days 
of  the  Fronde  he  had  been  driven  thence  to  find 
refuge  where  it  could  be  had. 

And  so  the  castles  and  lands  of  fair  France 
were  left  untenanted  and  falling  to  ruin,  and  to 
lie  untilled  and  neglected,  for  all  the  good  at  least 
the  people  reaped  ;  and  this  at  a  time  when 
rougher  warfare  had  ceased,  and  religious  strife 
had  calmed  down,  and  under  other  ruling,  the 
promise  of  prosperity  dawned.  Such  profits  and 
incomings  as  did  arise  from  these  tenures  and 
estates,  by  the  toil  of  the  peasant  dwellers  on  them, 
brought  them  only  starvation  wage ;  for  the  money 
earned  by  the  sweat  of  the  brows  of  the  peasantry 
was  needed  for  its  overlords'  silks  and  velvets,  and 
laces  and  jewelled  snuff-boxes,  and  solitaires,  to  add 
greater  bedazzlement  to  the  salons  and  galleries 
where  Louis  le  Grand  lived  his  span  of  years.  And 
even  when  this  was  ended— the  time  was  still  yet  afar 
off  for  the  breaking  of  the  storm — but  on,  ever  faster 
and  heavier,  the  clouds  were  lowering  in.  Neither 
Richelieu  or  Mazarin  tolerated  the  spirit  which 
inspires  to  a  man  ruling,  or  striving  to  rule,  with 
prudence  and  protecting  care  in  his  own  house. 
They  feared  it,  and  taxation  and  gabelle,  and  rents 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  207 

and  quit-rents,  as  they  waxed  on  to  their  hideous 
proportions,  set  minds  working  on  the  problem  of 
why  such  things  should  be,  and  how  came  about 
such  "  inequality  among  men."  "  Where  is  the 
wonder,  is  it  not  my  college  ?  "  said  the  king,  one 
day  when  he  had  bestowed  his  magnificent  presence 
on  the  representation,  by  the  pupils  of  the  Jesuit 
College  at  Clermont,  of  a  tragedy  very  finely  per- 
formed. "  Collegium  Cleromonterum  So  delate 
Jesus"  was  originally  graven  upon  the  college 
gate,  and  the  sycophant  principal  had  now  caused 
this  to  be  effaced,  and  "  Collegium  Ludovici  Magni  " 
inscribed  in  gold  letters  in  its  place. 

The  next  morning  was  to  be  seen,  fastened  on 
the  gate  beneath,  a  Latin  distich,  whose  meaning 
may  be  thus  interpreted — 

"  Christ's  name  expunged,  the  king's  now  fills  the  stone ; 
Oh,  impious  race !  by  that  is  plainly  shown 
That  Louis  is  the  only  god  you  own ! " 

The  author  of  these  lines  was  run  to  earth.  He 
was  found  to  be  a  pupil  of  the  college,  and  thirty- 
one  years  of  the  Bastille  and  of  St  Marguerite  were 
awarded  his  crime.  The  term  might  have  ended 
only  with  his  years,  had  he  not  suddenly  become 
sole  heir  to  the  estates  of  his  family,  and  it  was 
then  suggested  by  the  governor  of  the  Bastille,  a 
Jesuit,  that  setting  him  free  might  bring  golden 
rewards.  Being  released,  probably  the  reward 
followed. 

And  ever  the  intricate  machinery  of  corruption 
and  intrigue  in  high  places  worked  on.  Among  other 
schemes  of  Madame  de  Montespan,  was  one  of 


208  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

marrying  Louise  de  la  Valliere  to  the  Due  de 
Lauzim.  It  would  be,  at  all  events,  removing  the 
two  incommoding  ones  from  her  path ;  but  it  was 
an  arrangement  not  very  likely  to  appeal  to  the 
Duchesse  de  la  Valliere,  and  moreover,  the  im- 
prisoned Due  de  Lauzun  had  not  been  consulted. 
The  great  idea  of  the  favourite  was  simply,  by  fair 
means  or  foul,  to  get  all  she  could  of  Mademoiselle's 
possessions,  and  knowing  Mademoiselle's  infatuation 
for  Lauzun,  she  set  the  strings  to  the  best  of  her 
power  to  tempt  her  to  part  with  an  immense  portion 
of  her  fortune  by  the  promise  of  trying  to  win  the 
king's  consent  to  freeing  the  captive  of  Pignerol. 
To  this  end  she  flattered  and  cajoled  Mademoiselle's 
ladies,  among  whom  was  Madame  de  Fiesque, 
Ninon's  bitter  enemy,  none  the  less  envenomed 
against  her  on  account  of  the  triumphant  carrying 
through  of  the  marriage  of  Clotilde.  And  as  it 
happened  one  evening,  Ninon,  departing  from  her 
usual  custom  of  remaining  indoors  when  she  visited 
Madame  Montausier  at  St  Cloud,  went  for  a  stroll 
in  the  gardens,  and  at  a  turn  of  the  clipped  hedges 
she  came  face  to  face  with  la  Montespan,  leaning 
on  the  arm  of  Madame  de  Fiesque. 

Then  came  the  bursting  of  the  thunderclap. 
Madame  de  Fiesque,  pallid  with  rage,  whispered  a 
word  in  the  ear  of  la  Montespan,  who  turned,  and  in 
a  tone  of  disdain  indescribable,  said — 

11  La  Ninon  !  Who  dares  to  permit  this  woman 
to  walk  here  ?  " 

"  This  woman  ! "  The  words  stunned  Ninon 
for  the  moment;  while  indignation  raged  up  into 


NINON  DE  I/ENCLOS  209 

her  heart,  and  angry  tears  blinded  her.  Ninon  was 
— no  matter  what  she  was,  she  had  elected  to 
follow  her  own  ways.  These,  at  all  events,  were 
not  soiled  with  the  iniquities  of  the  woman  before 
her.  She  had  not  been  false  to  marriage-vows. 
She  had  never  betrayed  trusts  reposed  in  her  and 
in  friendship.  She  had  not  craftily  stolen  the  love 
of  the  king  from  the  woman  he  professed  to  be 
attached  to.  Blazing  with  indignation  at  the 
Montespan's  insulting  words  and  insolent  stare,  she 
made  some  excuse  to  Madame  Montausier  for  re- 
turning home,  and  sent  a  message  to  Monsieur  de 
Montespan  to  call  on  her  in  the  morning.  On  his 
arrival,  she  taxed  him  with  the  knowledge  of  his 
wife's  infidelity,  and  when  he  strove  to  disavow  it, 
she  drove  the  nail  home,  until  he  had  no  choice  but 
to  fall  in  with  her  suggestions — that  he  should  find 
his  way  straight  to  St  Cloud  and  punish  the  royal 
favourite  in  the  presence  of  the  king  and  all  the 
Court.  And  this  he  did,  bestowing  a  sounding  box 
on  the  lovely  ear  of  his  wife.  And  when  Ninon  asked 
what  the  king  said,  the  reply  was,  "  Never  a  word." 
But  many  a  word,  or  rather  epithet,  de  Montespan 
bestowed  then  on  his  Athenais. 

Ninon  recounted  this  affair  with  great  gusto  to 
Madame  Scarron.  Francpise  still  kept  up  great  in- 
timacy with  her  friend,  Madame  Arnoul,  a  person  for 
whom  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  had  an  instinctive 
dislike.  She  was  a  great  fortune-teller  with  the 
cards,  and  an  arch-crafty  intriguer,  and  by  a  series  of 
manoeuvres  she  wormed  herself  into  the  notice  of 
Madame  de  Montespan,  whose  husband  subsequently 


210  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

played  a  sorry  part  in  the  scandal  occurring  at  S  t  Cloud ; 
since  he  permitted  himself  to  be  bribed  to  continue 
to  countenance  his  wife's  connexion  with  the  king. 

Madame  Arnoul  however,  was  laying  her 
scheme,  and  played  her  cards  so  well  for  the 
amusement  of  Madame  de  Montespan,  that  she 
managed  to  acquaint  herself  with  many  secrets  of 
the  royal  favourite ;  and  in  return,  in  order  to  do 
evil  to  gain  what  she  considered  good,  she  whispered 
to  Madame  de  Montespan  the  truth  about  de  Monte- 
span's  box  on  the  ear.  The  result  was  an  order  for 
Ninon's  conveyance  to  the  convent-home  for  the 
Filles  Rfyenties ;  and  the  guard  who  arrested  her 
allowed  her  just  twenty  minutes  for  her  prepara- 
tions for  leaving  the  rue  des  Tournelles. 

It  was  a  terrible  and  humiliating  blow  for  Ninon. 
All  the  consolations  and  representations  of  Madame 
Arnoul,  who  was  permitted  an  interview  with  her, 
could  not  reconcile  her.  Yet  they  brought  some 
comfort ;  for  Ninon  could  see  that  the  woman's 
machinations  promised  to  bring  about  the  fall  of  the 
favourite,  and  in  her  place  to  set  no  less,  no  greater, 
a  person  than  Franchise,  the  Widow  Scarron. 

Rome  was  not,  of  course,  built  in  a  day ;  and 
Madame  Arnoul,  not  forgetful  of  her  own  interests, 
hastened  slowly.  Indications  were  not  wanting  that 
the  influence  of  Madame  de  Montespan  was  waning. 

The  favourite's  temper  was  not  a  mild  one,  and 
sometimes  she  gave  vent  to  it  in  rather  startling 
fashion.  Madame  Arnoul's  first  care  was  to  lead 
Madame  Scarron  into  more  devout  ways  than 
hitherto  she  had  followed,  and  the  habitual  calm,. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  211 

composed  bearing  of  Frangoise  was  not  out  of  the 
picture  of  this  new  role.  Madame  Arnoul,  in  her 
card-telling  visits  to  Madame  de  Montespan,  was 
favoured  by  her  with  many  confidences,  and  among 
them  the  Maitresse  en  Titre  mentioned  that  she 
was  seeking  a  governess  for  her  children,  a  lady 
who  was  to  be  pious  and  amiable,  and  of  course 
accomplished,  and  intellectually  gifted,  and  rich  in 
patience.  Except  for  the  piety,  Madame  Scarron 
possessed  all  these  qualifications,  and  for  the  piety, 
it  would  come  in  time ;  and  meanwhile  it  could  be 
put  on  easily  enough — it  was  a  virtue  not  difficult  to 
assume.  And  Madame  Arnoul,  consulting  her  cards, 
gravely  informed  Madame  de  Montespan  that  if  she 
repaired  to  the  church  of  St  Sulpice,  on  a  certain 
day,  at  a  certain  hour,  she  would  see  among  the 
communicants  of  the  early  Mass,  the  very  person 
she  was  seeking  for  her  children's  education.  Then 
'  followed  a  description  of  the  comely,  if  no  longer 
very  youthful,  Frangoise  d'Aubigne,  who  was  in- 
structed to  put  in  the  necessary  appearance  at 
St  Sulpice.  So  the  arrangement  was  brought  about 
and  concluded  very  satisfactorily,  and  Madame 
Scarron  found  herself  in  charge  of  the  little  Due  du 
Maine,  and  Louis  XIV.'s  other  children,  of  whom 
Athenais  de  Montespan  was  the  mother,  and  more 
and  more  as  time  passed,  winning  the  admiration  and 
liking  of  the  king,  who  found  great  charm  in  her  con- 
versation, which  certainly  went  to  show  that  his  faulty 
education  and  rearing  had  not  totally  stunted  him 
mentally,  for  the  wife  of  Scarron,  by  nature  and  long 
association,  was  a  woman  of  no  common  attainments. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

"In  Durance  Vile" — Moliere's  Mot — Le  Malade  Imaginaire — 
"  Rogues  and  Vagabonds  " — The  passing  of  Moliere — The 
narrowing  Circle — Fontenelle — Lulli — Racine — The  little 
Marquis — A  tardy  Pardon — The  charming  Widow  Scarron 
— A  Journey  to  the  Vosges,  and  the  Haunted  Chamber. 

"ONE  story  is  good  till  another  is  told.;)  The 
tangle  of  petty  vanities,  lust  of  gold  and  mutual 
jealousies  disgracing  the  Court  of  Versailles  at  this 
time,  might  well  have  dragged  Ninon  de  L'Enclos 
into  the  hated  durance  of  Les  Filles  Rtpenties,  at 
the  instigation  of  the  woman  who  at  least  was  not 
the  one  to  cast  a  stone.  One  fact  alone  was  indis- 
putable :  that  there  she  was,  and  as  certainly  more 
than  one  powerful  friend  at  Court  was  sparing  no 
endeavour  to  obtain  her  release.  Among  these  was 
Moliere,  the  man  of  the  generous,  kindly  heart,  who 
was  not  likely  to  forget  the  many  bounteous  acts 
and  the  warm  sympathy  Ninon  had  extended  to 
him  throughout  his  career. 

And  to  him  it  mainly  was  that  she  owed  her  re- 
lease from  the  convent.  A  representation  by  Moliere 
and  his  company  had  been  given  at  Versailles  of  his 
new  play,  Le  Malade  Imaginaire,  and  the  king,  on  its 
conclusion,  had  sent  for  Moliere  in  some  anxiety  ; 
for  it  had  been  evident  to  him  that  the  actor  was 
himself  no  imaginary  invalid,  but  suffering  and  ex- 
hausted with  the  exertion  of  his  arduous  role  of 
Argan.  More  than  once  of  late  his  understudy, 

212 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  213 

Croisy,  had  been  required  to  take  his  place  ;  and 
the  king  expressed  his  sympathy  and  his  regret 
that  Moliere  should  have  over-fatigued  himself  to 
afford  him  gratification,  for  that  his  health  was  too 
precious  to  be  trifled  with. 

Moliere  replied  that  he  would  have  striven  to 
leave  his  very  deathbed  to  plead  the  cause  he 
sought  to  win  of  His  Majesty ;  and  then  he  went 
on  to  tell  of  Ninon's  captivity,  of  which  the  king 
appeared  to  be  ignorant.  "  It  is,  moreover,  very 
absurd,  Sire,"  added  Moliere,  "  for  I  assure  your 
Majesty,  that  Ninon  is  neither  fille  nor  rdpentie" 

The  king  laughed  at  this  view  of  the  case,  as 
did  his  minister  Colbert,  who  was  seated  near,  and 
Moliere,  not  losing  sight  of  the  royal  proclivity  of 
promise-breaking,  wasted  not  a  moment  in  causing 
the  order  vouchsafed  for  Ninon's  release,  to  be 
delivered  in  to  the  Superior  of  the  Repenties.  Then 
a  coach  was  sent  for,  the  gates  were  opened,  and 
Ninon  was  free. 

Full  of  gratitude  for  the  favour  which  she  had 
not  so  much  as  sought  of  Moliere,  she  hastened  to 
his  house.  He  was  seated  wearily  in  a  chair,  but 
for  the  moment,  in  her  joyful  excitement,  she  did 
not  notice  his  appearance,  more  especially  as  he 
sprang  up  briskly  to  meet  her  and  to  take  her  in 
his  arms,  while  her  tears  fell  fast,  assuring  her  that 
she  had  done  him  a  world  of  good.  Before  she 
came  in  he  owned  that  he  had  been  feeling  un- 
usually ill,  and  was  about  to  ask  Croisy  to  take  his 
place  on  the  stage  that  evening  ;  but  now —  "  No, 
I  will  play  myself,"  added  Moliere,  and  his  pale 


214  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

cheeks  flushed,  and  his  eyes  gathered  their  wonted 
brightness  and  animation.  "  I  will  be  Le  Malade 
Imaginaire  once  more  !  " 

Alas !  once  more.  And  a  little  while  before  the 
curtain  fell  for  the  last  time  on  the  closing  interlude, 
the  word  "juro,"  several  times  reiterated  through 
the  dialogue,  came  faintly  on  a  stream  of  blood 
from  his  lips,  and  the  dying  Moliere  was  borne  from 
the  stage. 

It  was  but  the  fulfilment  of  the  apprehensions  of 
his  friends.  His  lungs  had  been  for  some  time 
affected,  and  he  had  broken  a  blood-vessel.  Already 
half-unconscious,  they  conveyed  him  homeward  to 
his  house  in  the  rue  de  Richelieu  ;  but  he  fain  ted  on 
the  way,  and  he  was  carried  into  the  convent  of 
St  Vincent  de  Paul  and  laid  on  a  couch  in  the 
parlour,  where,  in  sore  distress,  the  good  sisters 
tended  him,  for  he  had  frequently  shown  them 
much  hospitality  and  generous  kindness,  and  in  the 
arms  of  the  two  supporting  him  he  passed  away. 
His  half-inaudible  dying  request  was  for  religious 
consolation  ;  but  ere  that  came  he  was  dead.  The 
priest  of  St  Eustache  did  not  hurry  to  attend  a 
stage-player — the  "  rogue  and  vagabond  " — for  what 
else  in  the  sight  of  the  law  was  this  fine  literary 
genius,  great  philosopher  and  noble-hearted  man  ? 
Neither  was  it  the  fault  of  Monseigneur  Harlay  de 
Champvalon,  Archbishop  of  Paris  ("so  notorious," 
writes  the  poet's  great  biographer,  "  for  his  gallant 
intrigues  ")  that  he  was  not  denied  Christian  burial. 

Moliere's  young  wife  had  not  been  a  pattern  of  con- 
jugal propriety ;  but  she  revered  her  husband  ;  and 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  215 

in  her  indignation  at  the  archbishop's  refusal,  she 
cried — "They  refuse  to  bury  a  man  to  whom  in 
Greece,  altars  would  have  been  erected  !  "  and  ask- 
ing the  Cure  of  Auteuil,  whose  views  differed  from 
the  archiepiscopal  ones,  to  accompany  her  to  Ver- 
sailles, she  found  her  way  into  the  king's  presence 
and  demanded  justice.  "If  my  husband  was  a 
criminal,  his  crimes  were  sanctioned  by  your  Majesty 
in  person,"  she  said.  Louis's  response  was  elusive, 
as  it  was  apt  to  be  in  the  face  of  difficult  questions. 
It  was,  he  said,  an  affair  of  the  archbishop's  ;  but 
he  sent  secret  commands  to  Monseigneur,  which 
resulted  in  a  compromise,  and  the  body  of  the 
dead  poet  was  interred  in  the  cemetery  of  St  Joseph, 
rue  Montmartre,  accompanied  by  two  priests.  But 
it  was  not  first  admitted  into  the  church,  for  he  had 
died,  as  Monseigneur  said,  "  without  the  consolations 
of  religion." 

"A  ministering  angel  shall  my  sister  be  when 
thou  liest  howling''  Irresistibly  the  words  of 
that  other  great  dramatic  genius  force  themselves 
into  the  record  of  Moliere's  laying  to  his  long  rest. 
It  was  still  only  to  be  secured  amid  the  riot  of  a 
rabble  which,  having  got  wind  of  the  dispute  in  high 
places,  assembled  outside  the  house  in  the  rue  de 
Richelieu.  The  disgraceful  uproar  was  quelled 
only  by  Madame  Moliere  throwing  money,  to  a  large 
amount,  out  of  window.  Then  the  mob  silenced 
down,  and  followed  the  simple  cortege  respectfully. 

The  widow  of  Moliere  subsequently  married 
again  ;  but  his  memory  must  have  remained  warm  in 
her  heart ;  for  some  years  later,  during  a  bitter  cold 


216  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

winter,  she  had  a  hundred  loads  of  wood  conveyed 
to  the  cemetery,  and  burned  on  the  tomb  of  her 
husband,  to  warm  all  the  poor  people  of  the  quarter. 
"  The  great  heat  split  in  two  the  stone,  which  was 
still  to  be  seen  cracked  across  the  middle  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century."1  The  Fon- 
taine Moliere,  in  the  rue  de  Richelieu,  now  com- 
memorates the  poet,  and  in  the  green-room  of  the 
Comedie  Frangaise  are  the  bust,  and  the  portrait, 
by  the  painter  Coypel,  of  him  who  was  practically 
the  founder  of  the  world-famous  institution.  There 
were  countless  epitaphs  on  Moliere,  generated  for 
the  most  part,  by  the  injustices  done  him  in  life  as 
in  death.  The  following  is  accounted  the  most 
noteworthy : — 

"  Tu  reformas  et  la  ville  et  la  cour ; 

Mais  quelle  en  fut  la  recompense  ? 

Les  Frangais  rougiront  un  jour 

De  leur  peu  de  reconnaissance, 

II  leur  fallut  un  comedien 
Qui  mit  a  les  polir,  sa  gloire  et  son  e'tude. 
Mais  Moliere,  a  ta  gloire  il  ne  manquerait  rien, 
Si,  parmi  les  deTauts  que  tu  peignis  si  bien, 
Tu  les  avais  repris  de  leur  ingratitude." 

P.  BONHOURS. 

And  so  the  journey  of  her  life,  shadowed  more 
and  more  by  the  dropping  away  into  the  mists  of 
death  of  so  many  of  the  well-loved  ones,  Ninon's 
own  years  fled  on,  still  finding  content  in  the 
society  of  the  many  friends,  young  and  old,  not  gone 
before.  Among  these  was  Madame  de  la  Sabliere, 

1  Du  Tillet. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  217 

with  la  Fontaine  ever  in  attendance  ;  Marsillac,  the 
comrade  of  Ninon's  youth — now  the  due  de  la 
Rochefoucauld — with  his  Maxims,  which  she  keenly 
criticised,  as  based  on  the  philosophy  of  self-love  : 
that  self  only  was  the  motive  power  of  human 
thought  and  action  ;  Corneille,  growing  old,  and 
preferring  his  latest  tragedy  of  Surene  to  the 
immortal  Cid,  a  preference  shared  by  few  ;  with  him 
came  his  nephew,  Fontenelle,  the  brilliant  scholar  and 
centenarian  to  be,  short  of  a  few  weeks,  who  on  his 
deathbed  said — "  My  friends,  I  do  not  suffer;  only 
I  find  existence  a  little  difficult,"  and  who  followed 
the  via  media  philosophy  so  closely,  that  he  was 
wont  to  boast  he  never  either  laughed  or  wept. 
Then  Ninon  would  tune  her  lute,  and  play  the  airs 
of  the  new  musical  conductor  of  the  king's 
orchestra,  Lulli,  the  miller's  son,  a  scullion  once,  risen 
to  be  master  of  French  dramatic  music,  who  met 
his  death  so  disastrously  from  the  bungling  treat- 
ment of  a  quack  doctor.  The  priest  who  attended 
his  last  hours  refused  to  give  him  the  consolations  of 
religion  until  he  had  consented  to  have  the  score  of 
his  latest  opera  destroyed.  He  consented,  to  the 
indignation  of  a  friend  who  was  with  him.  "  Hush, 
hush  !  "  said  Lulli ;  "  there  is  a  fair  copy  of  it  in  my 
drawer." 

Sometimes  Racine,  a  neighbour  now  of  Made- 
moiselle de  L'Enclos,  would  declaim  passages  from 
his  Iphigdnie,  or  Madame  de  la  Fayette  would 
read  from  her  history  of  Henrietta  of  England,  just 
then  on  point  of  completion.  She  and  Madame 
Montausier  were  Ninon's  sincerest  and  best-beloved 


218  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

friends.  One  day  Madame  de  la  Fayette  asked 
her  the  cause  of  the  coolness  existing  between 
herself  and  Madame  de  Sevigne".  It  was  a  cool- 
ness all  on  one  side,  shrugged  Ninon.  To  be  sure, 
she  had  the  young  Marquis  de  Grignan,  Madame's 
grandson,  at  her  feet — as  in  times  gone  by,  the 
Marquis  fiere,  and  the  Marquis grandpere  had  sighed 
there.  She  inclined,  however,  to  his  marrying  as  his 
mother  desired,  all  the  more  that,  besides  entertaining 
no  overwhelming  admiration  for  the  little  marquis, 
she  was  jealous  of  his  worshipping  also  at  the  shrine 
of  the  great  tragic  actress,  la  Champmesle,  who  had 
rendered  herself  so  famous  in  the  Andromaque  of 
Racine.  The  poet  had  introduced  de  Se"vigne  to 
the  tragedienne,  to  whom  Ninon  conceded  talent,  but 
no  beauty.  The  affair  came  to  an  amiable  conclu- 
sion, and  while  a  reconciliation  was  effected  between 
Ninon  and  la  Champmesle,  she  concluded  a  peace 
with  Madame  de  Se*vigne*,  esteeming  her  friendship 
above  the  folly  and  trifling  of  her  grandson. 

To  effect  this  treaty  of  peace,  she  was  con- 
ducted to  the  house  of  Madame  de  SeVigne  by  their 
mutual  friend,  Madame  de  la  Fayette.  The 
physical  personal  attraction  of  the  queen  of  episto- 
lary correspondence  has  been  many  times  recorded  ; 
but  the  critical  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  does  not 
allow  her  any  great  claims  to  it.  Her  nose  was 
long  and  sharp,  with  wide  nostrils,  and  her  counten- 
ance generally  had  something  of  a  pedantic  stamp. 
Still,  Ninon's  opinion,  while  Madame  de  SeVigne*'s 
portrait  of  her  by  Mignard  exists  at  Les  Rochers, 
needs  not  to  be  accepted  as  final,  and  she  hastens 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  219 

to  speak  of  her  manner,  at  once  so  dignified  and 
courteous.  She  went  so  far,  in  discussing  Ninon's 
liaison  with  young  de  Sevigne*,  as  to  say  that  her 
objection  was  mainly  rooted  in  the  fear  that  her 
son's  attachment  to  her  would  endure  and 
hinder  his  desire  for  marriage,  for  which  Madame 
de  Sevigne  herself  was  so  anxious.  As  things 
went,  de  S£ vigne*  soon  after  took  to  himself  a  wife, 
and  Ninon  gained  a  friend,  who  became  a  frequent 
guest  at  the  reunions  of  the  rue  des  Tournelles. 

Profiting  by  Madame  Scarron's  favour  at  Court, 
Ninon  sought  to  obtain  the  king's  pardon  for  her 
old  friend,  St  Evremond ;  this  was  accorded.  St 
Evremond,  however,  did  not  return  to  France. 
He  found  the  land  of  his  exile  a  pleasant  Patmos, 
and  the  Court  of  Whitehall,  where  he  had  won 
troops  of  friends,  more  congenial  than  Versailles, 
and  he  never  crossed  the  Channel  again,  but  lived 
his  span  of  life,  lengthy  as  Ninon's  ;  and  his  resting- 
place  is  among  the  great  in  Westminster  Abbey, 

"  Carolus  de  Saint  Denis,  Due  de  St  Evremond. 

Viro  Clarissimo 

Inter  Praestantiores 

Aloi  Sui  Scriptores 

Semper  Memorando 

Amici  Marantes. 

P.P." 

The  golden  link  of  their  correspondence  hence- 
forth was  alone  to  hold  together  the  names  of 
Ninon  de  L'Enclos  and  Henri  de  St  Evremond. 

Madame  Arnoul  was  regarded  by  Ninon  with 
scant  favour.  She  held  her  for  a  sort  of  dme 


220  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

damnte  of  Madame  Scarron,  an  adventuress,  who 
played  her  cards  well,  so  skilfully  indeed,  that  her 
prognostications  seemed  more  and  more  surely 
finding  realisation.  The  Montespan's  temper  did 
not  improve  with  time,  and  the  placid  demeanour 
of  the  royal  governess  was  a  great  attraction  to 
Louis,  who  would  come  oftener,  and  stay  longer  in 
his  visits  to  the  children.  Moreover,  he  found 
great  charm  in  her  conversation.  Ninon,  who  could 
not  remain  blind  to  these  indications,  and  was 
ready  to  go  great  lengths  to  bring  about  de 
Montespan's  disgrace,  disliking  Madame  Arnoul  as 
she  did,  was  not  above  lending  herself  to  forward 
any  scheme  to  that  end,  even  though  it  originated  in 
Madame  Arnoul's  fertile  brain  ;  and  one  sufficiently 
daring  did  presently  find  birth  there.  For  the 
service  she  had  rendered  Ninon  conjointly  with 
Moliere,  in  freeing  her  from  the  durance  of  the 
Repenties,  Madame  Arnoul  had  claimed  of  her  a 
quid  pro  quo  at  some  future  time.  That  time,  she 
said,  when  she  called  upon  her  some  few  weeks 
later,  was  now,  for  putting  the  finishing  strokes  to 
the  downfall  of  the  favourite — if  that  de  Montespan 
could  still  be  designated — and  Ninon  was  to  be  the 
instrument  for  this.  She  was,  in  the  first  place,  to 
disguise  herself  as  a  man.  So  far,  nothing  easier, 
said  Ninon — was  it  not  to  do  what  she  had  done  so 
many  a  time  ? — and  that  small  matter  arranged,  she 
and  Madame  Arnoul  set  out  for  the  frontiers, 
where  the  king  was  about  to  go  with  all  his  Court 
to  meet  Turenne,  who  had  been  waging  victorious 
war  against  the  combined  forces  of  Spain  and 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  221 

Austria,  waxing  ever  more  alarmed  at,  and  jealous 
of,  the  successes  of  Louis  XIV. 

Arrived  in  Lorraine,  the  two  ladies  travelled  to 
Nancy,  reaching  the  town  a  day  or  so  before  the 
royal  cortege  arrived,  Madame  Arnoul  having 
acquired  the  knowledge  of  the  exact  route  it  was 
to  take.  From  Nancy,  the  two  women  proceeded 
to  Luneville,  and  thence  onward  into  Alsace,  and 
far  into  the  very  heart  of  the  Vosges,  where  they 
slept  on  the  first  night,  in  a  little  hamlet  called 
Raon  1'^tape.  The  next  day  they  reached  St 
Die,  a  pretty  little  town,  one  day,  said  the  terrible 
tradition,  to  be  crushed  by  the  falling  of  the  huge 
precipice  of  1'Ormont ;  and  to  avert  this  catastrophe 
annual  processions  were  made  ;  but  1'Ormont  stands 
somewhat  back  from  the  area  of  St  Did,  and  if  it  fell, 
it  would  probably  be  short  of  the  town.  Moreover, 
what  is  St  Die"  but  the  gift  of  God  ? — Dieu-donnZ 
hedged  about  by  the  memory  of  its  founder,  the 
assassinated  Childe'ric  II. 

Faring  on  by  narrow,  half-impassable  roads, 
winding  on  the  verge  of  rugged  precipices,  through 
dense  pine  -  forests,  whose  close  network  of 
branches  almost  hid  the  sky,  they  reached  St 
Marie-aux-Mines,  a  town  forming  part  of  the 
appanage  of  the  Prince  Palatine  of  Birkenfeld.  It 
lies  cradled  between  two  pine-clad  mountains, 
watered  by  innumerable  limpid  rivulets,  meandering 
in  all  directions.  There  Ninon  and  Madame 
Arnoul  halted  for  dinner,  whose  excellence  was 
much  below  par  of  the  natural  attractions  of  the 
place  ;  but  Madame  Arnoul  consoled  her  companion 


223  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

with  the  information  that  some  few  leagues  more 
would  bring  them  to  their  journey's  end,  and  the 
place  where  the  mysterious  proceedings  indicated 
were  to  be  carried  out.  And  next  day  they  arrived 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ribeauville",  and  Ninon 
found  herself  in  a  magnificent  chateau  belonging 
to  the  brother-in-law  of  the  Prince  Palatine.  This 
personage  was,  however,  absent,  and  in  his  place 
the  two  ladies  were  received  by  the  high  steward, 
who,  Madame  Arnoul  afterwards  explained,  was  the 
cousin  of  the  king's  valet-de-chambre>  whom  she 
had  enlisted  into  her  project,  and  she  handed  the 
steward  a  letter  from  this  relative. 

Having  perused  the  letter,  he  redoubled  his 
courtesies ;  but  evidently  under  the  influence  of 
extreme  perturbation,  which  he  strove  to  cover  by 
silence.  The  letter  he  thrust  into  his  pocket 
without  any  reference  to  its  contents  ;  unless  a  slight 
shrug  of  his  shoulders  meant  anything. 

At  supper,  of  which  he  did  the  honours,  Madame 
Arnoul  asked  him  why  he  had  not  spoken  of  the 
famous  Chamber  of  Phantoms  the  chateau  con- 
tained. The  steward  started  like  a  guilty  thing 
half  off  his  chair,  and  asked  Madame  Arnoul  if 
indeed  she  entertained  the  dangerous  fancy  to — to 
sleep,  save  the  mark ! — in  that  terrible  room,  as  his 
cousin,  had  written  him.  He  knew  his  cousin,  of 
course,  to  be  an  idiot,  but — but  no,  the  idea  was  not  to 
be  contemplated.  Anyone  insane  enough  to  spend 
a  night  in  that  awful  apartment  would  be  found  a 
strangled  corpse  in  the  morning. 

Madame  laughed,  and  replied  that  she  did  not 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  223 

believe  in  ghosts ;  that  she  and  her  husband  had 
laid  a  heavy  bet  on  the  point  of  sleeping  in  the 
haunted  chamber,  and  surely  Monsieur  would  not 
be  the  cause  of  their  losing  it. 

With  a  pale  face  and  slow  steps,  the  major- 
domo  went  out  to  order  a  bed,  and  other  prepara- 
tions to  be  made  in  the  room,  for  Madame  and  her 
husband — Ninon  enacting  that  role  in  her  mas- 
culine attire  ;  and  shortly  after  the  two  retired  for 
the  night,  conducted  to  the  door  of  the  apartment 
by  the  pale-faced,  agitated  steward.  No  sooner 
were  they  alone  than  Madame  Arnoul  proceeded 
to  make  a  close  inspection  of  the  wainscotted  walls. 
Presently  an  exclamation  of  delight  escaped  her. 
"  See  here,"  she  cried,  and  slipping  her  hand  inside 
the  gaping  jaws  of  a  hideous,  reptile-like  monster, 
carved  in  the  woodwork  of  a  panel  just  beside  the 
bed,  she  pressed  a  knob  in  its  throat,  and  the  panel 
slid  aside  into  a  groove,  disclosing  beyond  a  much 
larger  chamber,  luxuriously  furnished,  and  bearing 
evidence  of  being  ready  prepared  for  an  occupant — 
"  No  less  a  person  than  His  Majesty,  Louis  XIV.," 
explained  Madame  Arnoul,  as  she  crossed  the  room 
towards  the  splendid  Carrara  marble  chimneypiece 
supported  at  the  corners  by  cherubim.  Into  the 
ear  of  one  of  them  Madame  put  her  finger,  with 
the  result  of  again  sending  open  the  panel,  which, 
not  a  little  to  the  nervous  terror  of  Ninon,  had 
closed  behind  them.  The  walls  of  this  great  State 
chamber  were  covered  with  gilded  russia  leather, 
which  entirely  concealed  the  movable  panel  between 
the  rooms.  Madame  Arnoul  laughingly  began  to 


224  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

reassure  her  disturbed  companion.  "It  was  quite 
true,"  she  said,  "that  a  great  many  persons  had 
been  found  dead  from  strangulation  in  that  smaller 
chamber,  some  century  earlier ;  but  the  ghosts 
were  not  responsible.  The  guilt  lay  with  the  then 
lord  of  the  manor,  the  Comte  de  Ribeauville',  who, 
ruined  by  debauch  and  gambling,  enticed  rich 
passing  travellers  to  spend  the  night  in  his  castle, 
lodged  them  in  this  bedchamber,  and  stealing  in 
by  the  secret  ways  during  the  night,  strangled  and 
robbed  his  unfortunate  guests.  While  Madame 
Arnoul  told  her  tale,  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door 
of  the  apartment,  and  the  baggage  of  the  two 
travellers  was  brought  in  and  deposited  on  the 
floor.  When  they  were  alone  again,  Madame 
Arnoul,  opening  one  of  the  trunks,  drew  forth  a 
magnificent  robe  of  brocade,  a  cordon  bleu,  and  a 
small  medallion  locket,  containing  the  portrait  of 
Anne  of  Austria.  Leading  Ninon  to  a  mirror,  she 
placed  the  locket  in  her  hands,  and  bade  her  com- 
pare her  own  countenance  with  that  of  the  dead 
queen.  A  few  touches  here  and  there,  a  little 
filling  out  with  stuffing,  and  Ninon  would  be  the 
very  double  of  the  queen  :  Louis  himself  could  not 
know  them  apart 

Some  sort  of  light  broke  in  upon  Ninon.  Was 
she  to  be  the  ghost  of  Anne  of  Austria  ?  Just  that ; 
but  Ninon  shook  her  head.  It  would  be  simply 
profanation.  "  Not  in  such  a  good  cause,"  smiled 
Madame  Arnoul.  "  Not  if  it  had  the  effect  of 
terrifying  the  king  into  dismissing  Madame  de  Monte- 
span.  It  would  be  a  most  meritorious  act,  that." 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  225 

Ninon's  heart  rose.  "  But  if  we  should  be  found 
out  ?  "  she  said. 

"  Trust  me,"  smiled  Madame  Arnoul,  and  in  a 
few  moments  she  was  sleeping  the  sleep  that  only 
the  innocent  and  travel-tired  know,  in  the  great 
terrible  bed  of  the  haunted  chamber. 

At  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  there  was  a 
tap  at  the  door.  The  steward  had  sent  to  inquire 
whether  the  night  had  been  passed  undisturbed. 
Madame  Arnoul  replied  that  nothing  could  have 
been  more  comfortable. 

The  Court  arrived  next  day,  and  Louis  XIV., 
greatly  fatigued  with  the  long  journey,  retired  to 
bed  at  nine  o'clock.  Then  began  the  royal  toilette 
of  Ninon.  It  was  a  work  of  time,  for  Ninon's 
figure  called  for  considerable  expansion,  and  her 
brown  hair  needed  golden  tints.  These  details 
achieved  with  consummate  art,  she  donned  the 
brocade  gown  and  embroidered  satins,  and 
crowned  the  work  with  the  cordon  bleu.  All 
being  ready,  Madame  pressed  the  knob  in  the 
griffin's  throat.  The  panel  fell  apart,  and  the 
deceased  queen,  Anne  of  Austria,  appeared  in  the 
king's  chamber. 

His  Majesty  was  in  a  deep  sleep,  and  Ninon 
glided  majestically  to  the  bedside,  lighted  by  the 
brilliant  but  somewhat  quivering  brilliancy  of  a 
phosphorescent  torch  which  Madame  Arnoul  waved 
through  the  open  panel. 

Then  Ninon  laid  her  cold  hand,  half  congealed 
by  immersion  for  a  length  of  time  in  iced  water, 

upon  the  arm  of  Louis,  and  he  awoke  with  a  start, 
p 


226  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

and  sitting  up,  stared  with  haggard,  terrified  gaze 
at  the  apparition. 

"  My  mother  ! — my  mother  !  "  he  gasped,  in 
fear-suffocated  tones. 

Laying  her  finger  on  her  lips,  Ninon  placed  on 
the  table,  beside  the  bed,  a  paper,  and  pointing 
down  on  it,  with  a  terrible  frown  on  her  brows,  she 
glided  backwards  till  she  reached  the  panel,  where 
she  was  lost  in  the  gloom  of  the  night,  as  Madame 
Arnoul  extinguished  the  torch. 

It  was  a  hazardous  game,  and  Ninon  was  half- 
dead  with  terror  at  its  conclusion.  Louis  was,  if 
possible,  still  more  terrified  ;  and  as  the  two  women 
stood  listening  in  the  Chamber  of  the  Phantoms, 
they  heard  through  the  not  quite  closed  panel  the 
voice  of  their  accomplice,  Louis's  valet -de-chambre, 
inquiring  in  agitated  tones  what  ailed  him. 

The  king  could  only  articulate  a  command  for 
a  light,  and  by  it  he  read  the  terrible  warning 
against  his  courses  of  life,  written  by  Madame 
Arnoul,  who  had  feared  that  Louis  would  detect 
the  fraud  if  Ninon  had  spoken  her  message. 
The  forgery  was  perfect  in  its  imitation  of  the 
queen's  handwriting,  a  piece  of  which  Madame 
Arnoul  had  contrived  to  procure,  and  it  ran  as 
follows : — 

"  SlRE, — Heaven  is  wrath  at  your  disorderly  life.  Two 
mistresses,  publicly  acknowledged,  shed  on  your  kingdom 
a  scandal  which  must  be  put  an  end  to  ;  above  all,  that 
one  which  violates  the  vows  of  marriage,  and  renders  you 
guilty  of  twofold  adultery.  Heaven  has  permitted  me 
to  communicate  this  to  you  myself.  This  paper,  which  I 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  227 

leave  in  your  hands,  I  beg  you  to  read,  my  son ;  weigh 
well  each  word ;  it  will  prove  to  you,  when  I  have  disap- 
peared, that  you  have  not  been  the  victim  of  an  illusion. 
Repent,  Sire,  and  do  not  force  the  dead  to  leave  their 
tombs  any  more.  ANNE  OF  AUSTRIA." 

Ninon  did  not  close  an  eye  all  night.  What  if 
returning  sense  brought  any  suspicion  of  the 
deception  into  Louis's  mind?  He  would  order  the 
adjoining  rooms  to  be  searched,  and  those  lodged 
in  them  ;  and  if  the  deceased  queen's  attire  should 
be  found  in  the  valises  of  Madame  Arnoul — Ah !  it 
was  terrible  to  think  of!  And  no  sooner  day  broke, 
than  the  two  packed  up  their  baggage,  and  cleared 
away  from  the  Chateau  of  Ribeauville*,  not  very 
easy  in  their  minds  till  they  were  safe  again  in 
Paris,  where  they  had  not  been  especially  missed 
during  the  few  days'  absence,  and  they  preserved 
a  golden  silence  upon  their  romantic  adventure  in 
the  far-off  Vosges. 


CHAPTER  XX 

The  crime  of  Madame  Tiquet — A  charming  little  Hand — Aqua 
Toffana — The  Casket — A  devout  Criminal — The  Sinner  and 
the  Saint — Monsieur  de  Lauzun's  Boots — "Sister  Louise" 
— La  Fontanges — "  Madame  de  Maintenant." — The  Blanks 
in  the  Circle — The  Vatican  Fishes  and  their  Good  Example 
— Piety  at  Versailles — The  Periwigs  and  the  Paniers — P&re 
la  Chaise — A  dull  Court — Monsieur  de  St  Evremond's 
Decision. 

THE  eighteenth  century  in  France  is  stained  with 
the  record  of  three  criminal  cases  which  glare 
forth  in  the  annals  of  human  wickedness.  The 
last  occurred  in  the  latest  years,  and  culminated 
in  the  trial  and  execution  of  the  chief  criminal, 
Madame  Tiquet.  Though  she  had  accomplices — 
one  of  whom  also  suffered  the  extreme  penalty — and 
although  the  murderous  aim  fell  short,  and  the  in- 
tended victim  escaped,  the  attempt  ont  he  life  of  Mon- 
sieur Tiquet — an  esteemed  magistrate — charged 
against  his  wife,  made  on  two  separate  occasions, 
was  held  to  be  sufficient  warranty  for  the  capital 
sentence  upon  her.  Still,  since  Monsieur  Tiquet 
was  living  and  well,  the  decision  was  much  criticised. 
The  Parliament  was  accused  of  exacting  too  great  a 
penalty  for  the  crime  committed  against  itself,  in  the 
person  of  one  of  its  members,  and  Monsieur  Tiquet 
himself  is  said  to  have  pleaded  with  the  king  per- 
sonally for  his  wife's  reprieve,  but  to  no  effect. 
Madame  Tiquet  was  a  beautiful  woman,  moving  in 

228 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  229 

the  best  society,  and  extenuation  was  accordingly 
made  by  many,  some  even  going  the  length  of  de- 
claring belief  in  her  entire  innocence.  But  Madame 
Tiquet  was  decapitated  on  the  Place  de  Greve,  while 
her  chief  accomplice,  Jacques  Moura,  was  hanged. 

The  enormity  of  this  crime  rivalled  that  of  the 
recorded  murder  already  narrated,  of  the  Duchesse 
de  Ganges,  some  score  years  earlier,  these  both 
being  rivalled  by  the  series  of  murders,  perpetrated 
by  poison,  of  the  Marchioness  de  Brinvilliers.  It  is 
recorded  in  her  connection,  that 

"  In  the  plaster-cast  shop  is  a  small,  delicate,  plump 
little  hand,  dimpled  and  beautiful,  which  is  sold  to  artists 
as  a  model.  You  take  it  in  yours,  handle  it,  admire  it, 
almost  fancy  you  are  shaking  hands  with  the  good- 
humoured  and  festive  little  personage  to  whom  it  must 
have  belonged.  You  ask  whose  it  was,  and  are  told  that 
it  was  that  of  Madame  de  Brinvilliers,  the  notorious 
poisoner.  You  recoil  as  if  you  had  been  handling  an  asp." 

Marguerite  d'Aubrai  was  the  daughter  of  one 
Monsieur  d'Aubrai,  lieutenant-civil  of  Paris,  and  she 
was  married  at  an  early  age  to  the  Marquis  de  Brin- 
villiers, to  whom  for  a  while  she  was  devotedly 
attached.  In  time  her  affection  waned  in  favour  of  a 
Gascon  officer  named  St  Croix,  a  worthless  adven- 
turer. Monsieur  d'Aubrai,  discovering  his  daughter's 
infatuation,  obtained  an  order  for  the  imprisonment  of 
St  Croix  in  the  Bastille.  During  the  year  he  was 
confined  there,  he  contrived  to  make  acquaintance 
with  an  Italian  named  Exili,  who  was  an  adept  in 
the  art  of  toxicology,  and  possessed  the  secret  of 
the  concoction  of  the  terrible  Aqua  Toffana — to  call 


230  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

it  by  its  best-known  name,  and  as  it  was  in  its  later 
form  called  by  "  la  Toffana,"  the  Neapolitan  woman 
who  got  possession  of  the  recipe  from  the  reputed 
witch,  la  Sphara,  the  hag  of  a  hundred  years  earlier, 
who  was  in  the  pay  of  the  Borgias.  In  course  of 
time  the  secret  of  the  hideous  brew — originally  styled 
by  la  Sphara,  "  The  Manna  of  St  Nicolas  of  Bari" — 
had  leaked  out  through  the  confessional,  the  father- 
confessors,  appalled  probably  by  the  many  penitential 
revelations  made,  had  in  course  of  generations  given 
vent  almost  unwittingly  to  the  disclosures  of  so  many 
crimes  at  so  many  different  hands  ;  for  it  is  said  the 
c<  Manna,"  had  poisoned  over  six  hundred  persons, 
and  Exili  had  learnt  the  secret  of  the  ingredients 
of  the  subtle  mortal  poison,  which  was  a  tasteless 
colourless  drug.  On  the  release  of  St  Croix,  the 
marchioness's  mad  love  for  him  had  only  waxed 
greater,  and  when  she  had  extracted  from  him  this 
recipe  for  death,  they  planned  together  to  poison 
her  father,  her  sister,  and  two  brothers  successively, 
all  in  the  same  year  of  1670,  the  marchioness, 
meanwhile,  being  apparently  a  most  charitable  and 
pious  visitor  of  the  sick  in  the  Hotel  Dieu,  and 
other  hospitals  of  Paris,  but  suspected  later  of 
trying  the  effects  of  her  potions  on  the  various 
patients. 

One  day  brought  the  discovery  of  the  crimes  of 
these  two.  The  poisons  that  St  Croix  delighted 
in,  were  many  of  them,  so  deadly  of  breath,  that  he 
wore  a  glass  mask  to  protect  his  face  and  lips  from 
the  vapours,  and  on  one  occasion,  while  he  was  at 
work,  the  mask  fell  off.  He  died  instantly.  No 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  231 

one  coming  forward  to  claim  the  adventurer's  effects, 
they  fell  into  the  hands  of  Government.  Among  the 
articles  was  a  certain  casket,  which  the  marchioness 
claimed,  and  so  insistently  and  vehemently,  that 
the  authorities  became  suspicious,  and  first  had 
the  casket  opened.  Its  contents  were  composed  of 
packets  of  many  kinds  of  poisons,  each  ticketed  with 
a  description  of  the  effects  they  produced.  When  she 
learned  of  the  opening  of  the  casket,  the  murderess 
made  her  escape  to  England ;  but  still  in  terror  of 
pursuit,  she  fled  back  to  the  Continent,  where  she 
was  tracked  down  at  Liege,  and  taken  under  arrest 
back  to  Paris.  The  crimes,  one  by  one,  were  brought 
home  to  her,  and  she  was  condemned  to  be  beheaded 
and  burned.  Refusing  however,  to  plead,  she  was 
put  to  the  question  by  the  torture  of  swallowing 
water — "Surely,"  she  cried,  when  she  saw  the 
three  bucketfuls  of  water  standing  ready,  "  it  is  not 
intended  to  drown  me,  for  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  a  person  of  my  dimensions  can  swallow  all 
that ! " 

Not  content  with  her  own  'criminal  work,  she 
was  proved  to  have  supplied  the  means  for  it  to 
many  suspected  of  similar  crimes.  Implicated 
among  those  was  the  Due  de  Luxembourg,  and  some 
of  his  friends,  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  were 
suspected  of  causing  the  death  of  the  amiable  and 
lamented  Duchesse  d'Orleans. 

One  person  escaped  who  might  well  be  supposed 
would  have  been  one  of  the  marchioness's  first 
victims — her  husband.  It  is  believed  that  his 
indifference  to  her  induced  her  to  pass  him  over. 


232  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Madame  de  Se"  vigne,  however,  mentions  the  on  dit 
that  she  did  more  than  once  attempt  to  poison 
Brinvilliers  ;  but  that  St  Croix,  for  his  own  reason, 
administered  him  an  antidote,  and  the  marquis 
survived  to  intercede  for  his  wife's  life,  but,  of  course, 
ineffectually. 

When  she  was  arrested  at  Liege,  a  kind  of 
general  written  formula  framed  in  vague  allusion  to 
her  criminal  doings  was  found  upon  her,  clearly  for 
using  in  confession,  to  which  she  went  with  great 
regularity.  This  was  sufficiently  explicit  to  confirm 
the  other  evidences  of  her  guilt. 

"  She  communicated  her  poisons  frequently  in  pigeon- 
pies — by  which  a  great  many  were  killed,"  writes  Madame 
de  S6vigne,  "  not  from  any  particular  reason  for  despatch- 
ing them,  but  out  of  mere  curiosity  to  try  the  effects  of 
her  drugs.  The  chevalier  de  Guet,  who  had  been  a  guest 
at  her  delightful  entertainments  about  three  years  ago, 
has  been  languishing  ever  since.  She  inquired  the  other 
day  if  he  was  dead ;  upon  being  answered  '  No,'  she  said, 
turning  her  head  on  one  side, '  He  must  have  a  very  strong 
constitution  then.'  This  Monsieur  de  la  Rochefoucauld 
swears  to  be  true." 

During  the  next  ensuing  days,  Madame  de 
S6vign6's  letters  brim  with  details  of  the  wretched 
woman's  latest  hours. 

"  At  six  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  her  execution,"  she 
writes,  "  la  Brinvilliers  was  carried  in  a  cart,  stripped  to 
her  shift,  with  a  cord  about  her  neck,  to  the  church  of 
N6tre  Dame,  to  perform  the  amende  honorable.  She  was 
then  replaced  in  the  cart,  where  I  saw  her  lying  at  her 
length  on  a  truss  of  straw,  only  her  shift  and  a  suit  of 
plain  head-clothes,  with  a  confessor  on  one  side  and  a 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  233 

hangman  on  the  other.  Indeed,  my  dear,  the  sight  made 
me  shudder.  Those  who  saw  the  execution  say  she 
mounted  the  scaffold  with  great  courage." 

Threatened  with  the  question,  it  was  not  applied  ; 
since  she  said  at  last  that  she  would  confess  every- 
thing, and  an  appalling  confession  it  was.  Re- 
peatedly she  had  tried  to  poison  her  father,  brother 
and  several  others,  before  she  succeeded ;  and  all 
under  the  appearance  of  the  greatest  love  and  con- 
fidence. Finally,  Madame  de  SeVigne*  writes — 

"  At  length  all  is  over — la  Brinvilliers  is  in  the  air ; 
after  her  execution,  her  poor  little  body  was  thrown  into 
a  great  fire,  and  her  ashes  dispersed  by  the  wind.  And  so 
we  have  seen  the  end  of  a  sinner.  Her  confessor  says  she 
is  a  saint!!" 

After  the  death  of  Queen  Maria  Theresa,  which 
occurred  some  little  time  before  the  fall  of  Madame 
de  Montespan,  the  ascendency  of  the  royal  governess 
increased  rapidly. 

Madame  Arnoul  was  now  no  longer  the  indis- 
pensable friend  of  Madame  Scarron.  She  had  come, 
in  fact,  to  be  so  nearly  an  encumbrance,  that 
Frangoise  had  handed  her  over  in  marriage  to  a 
gentleman  of  Marseilles,  with  a  portion  of  twenty 
thousand  crowns,  after  having  profited  so  excellently 
by  the  example  of  the  intriguing  skill  of  that  past- 
mistress  in  the  art,  that  she  was  quite  capable 
henceforth  of  acting  for  herself. 

Madame  Scarron  was  not  slow  to  mark  the 
preponderating  affection  of  Louis  for  his  illegitimate 
children  over  the  children  of  the  queen,  and  that  to 


234  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

secure  His  Majesty's  favour  and  goodwill,  was  to  work 
to  advance  their  interests  by  every  possible  means. 
She  therefore  took  at  its  turn  the  tide  of  the 
ill-starred  fortunes  of  Mademoiselle  Montpensier's 
connection  with  de  Lauzun,  to  win  from  her  the 
duchy  of  Aumale,  the  earldom  of  Eu,  and  the 
principality  of  Dombes,  wherewith  to  endow  the 
children,  as  the  price  paid  for  obtaining  from  Louis 
the  pardon  and  release  of  de  Lauzun,  from  Pignerol. 
Then  came  the  turn  of  Lauzun  to  extract  from 
Mademoiselle,  for  himself,  the  duchy  of  Saint 
Fargeau,  the  barony  of  Thiers  in  Auvergne,  also  a 
huge  income  from  the  salt-tax  in  Languedoc.  That 
done,  de  Lauzun  showed  himself  for  the  base  un- 
grateful creature  he  was.  That  before  his  incarcera- 
tion at  Pignerol  a  secret  marriage  had  been  made 
between  them,  had  always  been  the  supposition ; 
since  otherwise  she  would  not,  it  was  thought,  have 
tolerated  his  treatment  of  her  now,  nor  all  the 
insults  his  fertile  imagination  devised  for  heaping 
on  her.  One  day,  in  the  presence  of  others,  he 
had  the  cruelty  to  find  fault  with  her  style  of  dress 
as  entirely  out  of  keeping  with  her  age.  Another 
time  he  accused  her  of  being  the  cause  of  all  his 
sufferings  at  Pignerol.  No  money,  he  declared, 
would  ever  make  up  for  it.  He  was  for  ever 
extorting  from  her  money  or  jewels,  which  he  lost 
at  cards.  Then  he  strove  to  obtain  from  her  the 
sole  command  and  control  of  all  she  still  possessed  ; 
but  the  worm  will  turn,  and  Mademoiselle  refused. 
This  enraged  him  to  a  pitch  that  spared  her  no 
insults,  and  his  finishing  touch  was  to  stretch  out 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  235 

his  foot  one  day  when  he  visited  her  at  Choisy,  and 
desire  her  to  pull  off  his  boots.  Mademoiselle  turned 
scornfully  away,  and  in  a  little  while  sought  conso- 
lation and  refuge  from  these  indignities  in  religious 
exercises  of  the  most  rigid  kind. 

Mademoiselle  de  la  Valliere,  another  broken- 
hearted woman,  also  about  this  time  entered  into 
the  convent  of  the  Carmelites.  She  took  the  veil, 
and  passed  the  rest  of  her  days  a  veritable  saint  under 
the  name  of  "  Sister  Louise  de  la  Misericorde." 

Madame  de  Montespan,  finding  all  attempts  to 
regain  the  old  empire  over  Louis  in  vain,  sub- 
sequently made  some  endeavour  to  live  a  more 
creditable  life. 

And  meanwhile  the  star  of  Fran9oise  rose  higher 
and  higher  in  the  royal  firmament.  The  flickering 
meteor  known  as  Mademoiselle  de  Fontanges  hardly 
ruffled  her  placidity.  To  Ninon,  Franchise  merely 
referred  to  her  as  a  proof  that  the  intimacy  in  which 
she  herself  lived  with  the  king,  was  no  more  than  one 
of  pure  warm  friendship,  and  had  never  exceeded 
those  limitations. 

As  for  la  Fontanges,  she  is  best  known  to 
posterity  by  the  extraordinary  head-dress  she 
adopted.  Ugly  as  it  was,  it  remained  in  fashion  for 
half  a  score  of  years.  It  was  a  structural  arrange- 
ment of  eight  divisions,  in  wire,  covered  with  pieces 
of  muslin,  bows  of  ribbon,  interlaced  with  curls. 
These  divisions  were  severally  called  :  la  Duchesse, 
le  Solitaire,  le  Chou,  le  Mousquetaire,  le  Croissant, 
le  Firmament,  le  Septieme  Ciel,  and  la  Souris.  (The 
Duchess,  the  Solitary,  the  Cabbage,  the  Musketeer, 


236  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

the  Crescent,  the  Firmament,  the  Seventh  Heaven 
and  the  Mouse.) 

The  king  now  bought  for  Madame  Scarron  the 
chateau  and  estate  of  Maintenon,  in  Brittany,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Gave  near  Chartres,  and  by  his  desire 
she  was  henceforth  called  "  Madame  de  Maintenon." 
Perhaps  hardly  so  much  at  his  desire,  there  were 
some  about  who  made  a  slight  change  in  the  ortho- 
graphy of  the  last  syllable,  and  called  her  "  Madame 
de  Maintenant" 

Her  marriage  with  Louis  is  believed  to  have 
been  celebrated  in  the  chapel  of  the  chateau x  in  1683 
— she  being  fifty  and  the  king  forty-seven  years 
old — in  the  presence  of  Harlay  and  Louvois, 
the  nuptial  knot  being  tied  by  the  confessor  of  the 
marquise,  Pere  la  Chaise.  She  further  obtained 
his  appointment  to  the  office  of  the  king's  con- 
fessor. 

Pere  la  Chaise  was  a  priest  of  the  Company  of 
Jesus,  a  man,  if  "neither  fanatical  nor  fawning." 
intolerant  of  all  religious  creeds  outside  his 
own ;  and  now,  holding  the  conscience  of  Louis 
XIV.  and  of  Madame  Louis  XIV.,  Pere  la  Chaise 
soon  became  a  power  in  the  land. 

One  by  one  death  was  bearing  away  the  friends 
of  Ninon's  earlier  years.  The  death  of  Madame  de 
Chevreuse,  at  Port  Royal,  was  followed  close  by  that 
of  Madame  de  Longueville.  Madame  de  Maintenon's 
prediction  that  de  la  Rochefoucauld  would  quickly 
follow  her  to  whom  his  heart  had  been  unchangingly 
given,  was  verified.  A  few  months,  and  Marsillac, 

1  St  Simon. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  237 

the  friend  of  Ninon's  merry  days  at  Loches,  was 
no  more. 

A  deep  melancholy  darkened  in  upon  Ninon  as 
she  thought  of  all  those  gone  hence,  and  the  many 
missing  now  from  the  circle  in  the  rue  des  Tour- 
nelles,  although  new  faces  were  not  wanting 
there,  and  she  maintained  the  old  hospitalities. 
She  was  not  sorry,  however,  to  put  an  end  to  these 
for  a  while,  in  order  to  fall  in  with  the  proposition  of 
Monsieur  le  N6tre,  that  she,  with  Madame  de  la 
Fayette,  should  accompany  him  to  Rome,  whither  he 
was  bound  with  his  friend,  the  poet  Santeuil,  a  canon 
of  St  Victor,  who  was  making  the  journey  in  order 
to  try  and  obtain  the  sanction  of  the  pope  to  the  use 
of  a  certain  collection  of  Latin  hymns  he  had  com- 
posed— in  all  the  churches  of  Christendom  ;  while 
the  pope  was  anxious  to  consult  the  royal  gardener 
upon  the  laying  out  of  the  parterres  of  the  Vatican. 

They  went  by  way  of  Geneva,  Turin,  Parma, 
and  Florence,  and  arrived  in  Rome.  His  Holiness 
received  the  travellers  with  the  most  gracious  and 
fatherly  of  welcomes,  surrounded  by  all  the  members 
of  the  Sacred  College.  After  a  while  he  conducted 
the  visitors  to  the  gardens,  where  he  paused  on  the 
brink  of  a  great  pond,  containing  fish  of  all  kinds, 
some  of  them  carp  two  hundred  years  old.  Pre- 
sently one  of  the  cardinals  rang  a  bell  hanging  to  a 
post  near  the  water's  edge,  and  all  the  fishes  came 
swimming  with  lightning  rapidity,  their  heads  lifting 
high  above  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  a  page 
approached  with  two  baskets,  one  filled  with  bread- 
crumbs, the  other  with  grain.  These  dainties  the 


238  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

pope  threw  into  the  pond  to  his  favourites,  who 
snapped  up  every  morsel  in  a  trice.  Then  the  bell 
rang  again,  the  fish  twisted  and  turned  joyously 
for  a  little  while,  as  if  to  display  their  gratitude  and 
satisfaction,  and  then  disappeared.  De  Santeuil 
remarked  that  the  fish  set  a  fine  example  to  the 
religious  Orders,  observing  so  excellently  as  they 
did,  the  rule  of  silence,  and  drinking  nothing  but 
water.  The  observation  was  not  very  cordially 
received  by  either  the  pope  or  his  cardinals,  and  in 
any  case,  de  Santeuil,  who  did  not  then  obtain  the 
permission  to  use  his  hymns,  was  inclined  to  blame 
the  fishes.  Some  grace  was  accorded  the  hymns 
later  ;  but  the  Consistory  was  of  opinion  that  they 
bore  a  flavour  of  paganism. 

Ninon,  on  returning  from  the  Holy  City  to 
Paris,  found  Corneille  at  the  point  of  death. 
Memories  now  were  her  best  consolation,  and 
though  she  had  not  been  eight  months  away  from 
Paris,  she  found  as  many  changes  on  her  return,  as 
if  she  had  been  absent  a  century.  The  king,  to 
begin  with,  had  become  converted,  and  the  Court 
had  followed  suit.  Everyone  was  occupied  with 
the  concerns  of  his  future  salvation.  The  king  had 
cut  off  his  moustache,  and  the  courtiers  had  all 
shaved  their  upper  lips.  As  His  Majesty  had 
decided  that  a  grey  wig  would  add  to  his  air  of 
respectability,  everybody  had  powdered  their  hair. 
Hitherto,  hair-powder  had  been  used  by  women 
only.  Hair  had  become  so  enormously  expensive, 
that  moderately-supplied  purses  had  to  be  con- 
tent with  a  thin  kind  of  crape  puffed  into  curls. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  239 

The  justaucorps,  after  having  developed  into  a 
cassock  kind  of  garment,  was  now  a  coat,  and  the 
nether  clothes  Ninon  considered  to  have  grown 
disgracefully  ugly  in  shape. 

The  women  had  borrowed  from  Spain  the  hideous 
deformity  of  vertugadins,  cage-like  objects  composed 
of  wire,  horsehair,  or  both,  which  they  bound  upon 
their  hips,  to  extend  the  hang  of  their  petticoats.  On 
the  top  of  this  monstrosity  came  the  panier,  a  whale- 
bone contrivance  covered  with  cloth  stuff,  put  to 
similar  ends,  and  so  greatly  obstructing  the  thorough- 
fares, that  the  women  were  frequently  obliged  to  stand 
on  one  side  to  allow  of  others  passing.  Pairing  off 
with  the  older  fashions,  went  the  old  French  natural 
gaiety,  graceful  manners  and  conversation,  and 
pompous  deportment  and  stilted  formalities  of 
speech  were  the  vogue.  Ninon  almost  found  con- 
solation for  growing  old  in  face  of  these  dreary 
surroundings,  fostered  and  assiduously  tended  by 
Madame  Louis  Quatorze  and  her  Jesuit  director, 
Pere  la  Chaise.  Of  what  consequence  was  France 
and  her  well-being,  provided  these  two  carried 
their  own  ends  to  fruition  ? 

Possibly  this  altered  state  of  things  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  Monsieur  de  St  Evrdmond's 
decision  to  remain  in  England,  where  the  natural 
atmosphere  might  be  brumous,  but  the  social  con- 
ditions far  less  lugubrious.  He  wrote,  at  all  events, 
to  Ninon  that,  everything  considered,  he  preferred 
to  remain  where  he  had  now  been  for  fifteen  years, 
and  would  content  himself  with  correspondence 
with  her,  and  "  I  shall  read  with  vast  satisfaction 


240  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

about  things  which  you  will  tell  me  that  I  know," 
he  writes,  "but  above  all,  tell  me  of  the  things 
about  which  I  do  not  know." 

And  Ninon  did  write  bright  letters  to  her 
old  friend,  full  of  chat  and  the  social  events  of  the 
day,  as  of  the  days  that  were  past — a  sort  of  long 
confession,  in  which  she  did  not  specially  spare 
anyone  ;  certainly  not  herself. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

A  distinguished  Salon — The  Duke's  Homage — Quietism — The 
disastrous  Edict — The  writing  on  the  Window-pane — The 
persecution  of  the  Huguenots — The  Pamphleteers — The 
story  of  Jean  Larcher  and  The  Ghost  of  M.  Scarron — The 
two  Policies. 

"  THE  house  of  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos,"  writes  a  con- 
temporary author,  "  was  then,  1694,  the  rendezvous  of  the 
persons  of  the  Court  and  of  the  city  who  were  regarded  as 
the  most  intellectually  gifted  and  estimable.  The  house 
of  Ninon  was,  perhaps,  in  these  latter  years  of  her  life,  the 
only  one  where  talent  and  wit  found  fair  breathing-room, 
and  where  the  time  was  passed  without  card-playing  and 
without  ennui,  and  until  the  age  of  eighty-seven  she  was 
sought  by  the  best  company  of  the  time." 

''And,"  writes  another  eminent  chronicler — 

"  Ninon  had  illustrious  friends  of  all  sorts,  and  showed 
such  wit  and  tact  that  she  never  failed  to  keep  them  in  good 
humour  with  each  other ;  or  at  all  events  free  of  petty 
differences.  Her  friends  were  of  the  most  refined  and 
mentally  gifted  of  the  people  of  the  Court ;  so  that  it  was 
esteemed  very  desirable  to  mingle  with  them  in  her  salon. 
There  was  never  any  gaming,  nor  loud  laughter,  nor  dis- 
puting, nor  religious  or  political  discussion,  but  much  flow 
of  wit,  and  conversing  on  topics  new  and  old,  subjects  of 
sentiment  or  of  gallantry,  but  these  never  transgressing  the 
bounds  of  good  taste.  All  was  delicate,  graceful,  well- 
balanced,  and  furnished  themes  which  she  was  well  able 
to  render  full  of  interest  from  her  stores  of  memories  of  so 
many  past  years.  The  consideration  she  had  acquired, 
the  number  and  distinction  of  her  friends  and  acquaint- 
ance, continued  to  be  her  attraction  when  the  charm  of 
Q  241 


242  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

her  beauty  had  faded.  She  knew  all  about  the  intrigues 
of  the  present  Court,  as  of  the  old,  serious  and  otherwise. 
Her  conversation  was  charming,  disinterested,  frank, 
guarded,  and  accurate  at  every  point,  and  almost  to  a  weak- 
ness blameless  and  pure.  She  frequently  assisted  her 
friends  with  money,  and  would  enter  for  them  into  im- 
portant negotiations,  and  ever  faithfully  guarded  money 
and  secrets  entrusted  to  her  keeping.  All  these  things  won 
for  her  a  repute  and  respect  of  the  most  marvellous  kind." 

Such,  on  the  testimony  of  the  Marquis  de  la 
Fare  and  of  St  Simon,  was  the  Ninon  de  L'Enclos 
of  the  closing  years  of  her  life  and  of  the  century. 
She  herself  records,  with  pardonable  pride,  that 
"  when  the  great  Conde  used  to  meet  her  out  driving, 
he  would  descend  from  his  carriage,  and  cause  the 
window  of  hers  to  be  let  down,  that  he  might  offer 
her  his  compliments." 

It  has  been  said  that  Paris  no  longer  had  any 
salon  except  hers  where  people  of  wit  and  breeding 
and  celebrity  forgathered.  There  came  Racine,  her 
near  neighbour,  Boileau,  Fontenelle,  la  Fontaine, 
Huydens,  Bussy  Rabutin,  Charleval,  Montreuil,  la 
Fare,  Benserade,  Desmarets,  Quinault,  La  Bruyere, 
and  with  them  many  of  the  prominent  men  and 
women  of  the  Court.  Thither  also  came  frequently 
Fdnelon,  and  it  was  in  Ninon's  salon  that  his 
relative,  Madame  Guyon,  first  expounded  her 
doctrine  of  Quietism. 

Now  and  again  Madame  de  Maintenon  would 
come  to  the  rue  des  Tournelles,  and  Ninon  concedes 
that  she  had  the  good  taste  not  to  unduly  assert 
herself  on  these  occasions ;  though  the  air  of  strict 
and  devout  propriety  seemed  ever  more  and  more 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  243 

to  enfold  her.  At  that  time  she  showed  considerable 
favour  to  the  theories  of  Madame  Guyon  and  of 
Fenelon ;  but  the  Jesuit  Pere  la  Chaise  had  small 
appreciation  of  anything  savouring  of  liberty  of 
conscience,  and  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was  imminent, 
the  evil  thing  engendered  in  the  brain  of  the  trio 
ruling  him  whose  proud  mottoes,  "Nee  pluribus 
impor"  "  Vires  acquiret  eundo"  so  belied  the  weak, 
superstitious  shadow  into  which  the  Grand  Mon- 
arque  had  faded. 

Louis's  liking  for  his  Huguenot  subjects  had 
always  been  so  entirely  of  the  smallest,  that  it 
verged  on  hatred.  Thanks  to  Mazarin's  plan  of 
mental  cultivation  for  him,  his  understanding  of 
the  doctrinal  questions  at  issue  between  Catholic 
and  Calvinist  was  so  infinitesimal  as  to  be  of  no 
account.  It  was  his  arrogant  claim  of  authority 
over  the  minds  and  bodies  of  his  subjects,  far 
more  than  any  spiritual  convictions,  which  needed 
but  the  representations  of  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
of  the  egotistical,  vain  and  unsympathetic  minister 
Louvois,  and  of  the  Jesuit  intolerance  of  Pere  la 
Chaise,  to  fire  the  smouldering  flame  of  extermi- 
nation of  the  "reformed  "  Christianity  of  France; 
and  on  the  22nd  of  October,  1685,  was  re- 
enacted  the  new  version  of  the  tragedy  of  St 
Bartholomew,  the  chief  role  in  it  played  by  the 
descendant  of  the  murdered  Coligny's  friend,  who 
had  been  the  progenitor  of  Frangoise  d'Aubigne", 
the  ambitious  Madame  Louis  Quatorze.  Gentle 
and  patient  in  adversity,  as  Scarron's  wife,  admir- 
able, and  perhaps  really  lovable,  in  that  far-off  day 


244  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

when  she  did  not  even  then  scruple,  and  success- 
fully, to  win  her  friend  Ninon's  lover  away  from 
her  —  a  fact  by  no  means  forgotten,  nor  likely 
to  be,  recorded  as  Monsieur  de  Villarceaux  had 
recorded  it  at  the  time  on  a  window  of  "  the  Yellow 
Room  "  in  the  rue  des  Tournelles.  There,  diamond- 
graven  on  the  pane  of  glass,  that  erotic  quatrain 
proclaimed  the  charms  of  Frangoise  as  unmistakably 
as  ever;  and  though  Ninon  had  no  part  in  it,  some- 
how the  lines  found  their  way  into  Monsieur  Loret's 
journal,  and  forthwith  it  created  other  couplets,  which 
commemorated  more  than  one  incident  in  the  life  of 
Madame  Louis  Quatorze.  The  precious  rhyming 
ran  into  several  verses,  varied  only  by  the  several 
names  of  Madame's  former  admirers,  starting  gaily 
with  Monsieur  de  Villarceaux  : 

"  On  est  ravi  que  le  roi  notre  sire, 

Aime  la  d'Aubign<£ 
Moi,  Villarceaux,  je  m£n  creve  de  rire, 

Hi !  he" !  hi !  hi !  hi !  he ! 
Puis  je  dirai,  sans  etre  plus  lestes, 
Tu  n'as  que  mes  restes, 

Toi! 
Tu  n'as  que  nos  restes,"  etc.  etc. 

Briefly,  the  French  nation  looked  with  con- 
tempt on  the  left-handed  marriage  contracted  by 
the  king.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  less  a  bigot  than 
an  assumed  one,  hypocritical,  ambitious,  wrapped 
about  in  a  veil  of  piety,  ruled  Louis  to  the  disaster 
of  the  country.  She  was  calmly,  ruthlessly  cruel  in 
her  methods  of  fostering  the  natural  passion  of  Louis 
for  getting  all  under  his  own  control.  Not  content 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  245 

with  the  grasp  of  government  which  Richelieu  had 
bequeathed  to  him,  and  he  had  retained  with  iron 
hand,  he  only  too  readily  allowed  himself  to  be 
urged  to  acquire  the  grip  of  the  consciences  of  his 
subjects.  The  Edict  of  Nantes,  established  by  the 
other  great  king,  which  had  brought  peace  to  the  dis- 
tracted land,  and  permitted  the  Protestants  freedom 
of  worship  after  their  own  simple  forms,  was  revoked, 
religious  intolerance  was  once  more  rampant,  and 
to  such  a  degree,  that  a  few  months  later,  a  second 
edict  deprived  the  Huguenots  of  keeping  their 
children.  The  quick  death  of  the  night  of  St 
Bartholomew  only  took  on  now  the  guise  of  slow 
torture,  prolonged  into  years,  which  witnessed  the 
departure  of  an  industrious  community,  and  sowed 
the  dragon's  teeth  of  revolution,  which  in  less  than 
another  hundred  years  was  to  ripen  into  such  fear- 
ful harvesting.  Discontent  prevailed,  deep  hatred 
rankled  against  the  despotism  of  Versailles.  The 
faults  of  Louis,  glaring  as  they  had  ever  been,  had 
hitherto  been  toned  in  the  eyes  of  his  people  by 
the  brilliancy  and  glory  of  martial  successes,  and  of 
great  achievement  in  civil  government ;  but  victory 
was  no  longer  constant,  and  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
had  exhausted  the  public  funds. 

The  enormous  prodigality  of  the  king's  mode  of 
life  was  beginning  to  be  more  and  more  recognised 
for  the  evil  it  was.  The  Sun-King's  light  was  fast 
dimming;  the  people  no  longer  worshipped  from 
afar,  and  the  death-stroke  to  his  popularity  and 
renown  waned  as  the  domination  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon  waxed  ever  more  powerful.  The 


246  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

pamphleteers  fell  to  work.  Many  such  produc- 
tions found  circulation  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the 
police  to  run  them  to  earth.  One  of  marked  effect 
was  entitled,  The  Sighs  of  Enslaved  France  for 
Liberty,  and  was  widely  read.  The  liberal  senti- 
ments of  the  pamphlets  made  deep  impression. 
When  they  were  detected  in  any  person's  posses- 
sion, the  unfortunate  students  were  forthwith  con- 
ducted to  the  torture-chamber  or  the  Bastille ; 
and  while  stricture  on  Louis  was  harshly  enough 
dealt  with,  it  was  mild  compared  with  any  attacks 
on  Madame  de  Maintenon.  The  king  was  so 
entirely  conscious  of  the  great  political  mistake  he 
had  made  in  his  marriage  with  her,  that  it  enraged 
him  to  be  reminded  of  it.  One  of  the  tractates  was 
called  The  Ghost  of  M.  Scarron,  and  it  was  adorned 
with  a  picture  parodying  the  statue  of  Louis  on 
the  Place  des  Victoires,  whose  four  allegorical 
figures  of  its  pedestal  were  replaced  in  the  pamphlet 
picture  by  the  figures  of  la  Valliere,  de  Montespan, 
Fontanges,  and  de  Maintenon.  One  morning  the 
king  found  a  copy  of  this  literary  effort  under 
his  breakfast  napkin,  and  Madame  Louis  Quatorze 
also  found  one  under  hers.  It  was  the  princes 
of  the  blood  who  were  her  most  bitter  enemies, 
and  their  powerful  influence  fomented  the  en- 
mity, and  contrived  to  defeat,  again  and  again, 
the  endeavours  of  Monsieur  de  la  Reynie,  the 
lieutenant  of  police,  to  bring  the  pamphleteers  to 
"  justice." 

The  Ghost   of  M.    Scarron  was   the  crowning 
offence,  and  Monsieur  de  la  Reynie  was  summoned 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  247 

to  Versailles,  and  commanded  at  any  cost  to  track 
down  the  authors  of  this  pamphlet. 

It  was  a  fearful  dilemma  for  Monsieur  de  la 
Reynie ;  that  it  would  end  in  his  disgrace  he  could 
not  doubt,  and  whenever  the  king  chanced  to  see 
the  unhappy  lieutenant,  he  flung  reproaches  at  him 
on  account  of  the  terrible  "ghost." 

Curious  chance  came  to  the  rescue  of  Monsieur 
de  la  Reynie;  but  to  the  undoing  and  judicial 
murder  of  an  innocent  man,  one  Jean  Larcher,  end- 
ing up  with  a  horrible  tragedy.  This  Jean  Larcher, 
who  had  sustained  a  loss  of  some  5000  livres, 
which  had  been  stolen  from  his  house,  came  to  the 
lieutenant  of  police  to  lodge  his  complaint,  in  the 
hope  that  the  thief  might  be  traced.  No  sooner 
had  he  given  his  name,  than  Monsieur  de  la  Reynie 
summoned  a  police  officer,  and  whispering  a  few 
words  in  his  ear,  bade  him  accompany  Larcher, 
who  was  a  bookbinder,  to  his  house  in  the  rue  des 
Lions  St  Paul.  Larcher,  delighted  at  the  prompt 
and  interested  attention  shown  him,  grew  com- 
municative as  he  went  along,  and  gave  the  officer 
much  information  as  to  the  exact  position  of  the 
receptacles  in  which  he  stored  his  money  and  stock 
in  trade.  On  arriving,  the  officer,  changing  his 
courteous  demeanour,  called  to  two  of  the  small 
throng  of  soldiers  and  police  standing  about  in  front 
of  the  bookbinder's  door,  and  bidding  them  keep 
him  well  in  their  charge,  and  follow  him  upstairs  in 
company  with  another  officer,  went  first  to  a  room 
on  the  first  floor,  where  he  told  the  man  to  climb 
to  the  top  of  a  certain  cupboard,  loaded  with  papers 


248  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

and  pamphlets  ready  for  the  binder,  and  bring 
them  down.  Selecting  one  of  these,  the  officer 
placed  it  in  the  hands  of  Larcher,  who  turned  white 
as  a  sheet,  for  it  was  a  copy  of  The  Ghost  of  M. 
Scarron.  The  unfortunate  man,  without  more  ado, 
was  hurried  off  under  arrest  to  the  Chatelet,  and 
thence,  before  any  great  loss  of  time,  to  the  torture- 
chamber,  three  times  suffering  there,  and  finally  to 
the  gibbet,  where  he  died  bravely,  and  firmly 
asserting  his  innocence  to  the  last. 

There  came  a  time  when  he  was  justified.  The 
whole  matter  proved  to  be  an  infamous  plot,  con- 
cocted by  a  scoundrel  who  had  an  intrigue  with 
Larcher's  wife.  This  man  was  Larcher's  assistant, 
and  afterwards  married  the  widow.  At  a  later  time 
Larcher's  son  discovered  that  the  wretched  fellow 
had  placed  the  pamphlets  where  they  were  come 
upon  in  Larcher's  house,  and  then  had  written  an 
anonymous  letter  to  Monsieur  de  la  Reynie,  inform- 
ing him  of  where  they  were  to  be  found.  On 
tracking  the  exact  truth  and  circumstances  of  this 
abominable  treachery,  the  young  man  broke,  in  the 
dead  of  night,  into  the  house  where  the  couple 
lived,  and  murdered  both.  He  was  arrested  ;  but 
he  was  saved  from  public  death  by  brain-fever, 
which  struck  him  down  while  he  was  in  prison. 

At  the  time  of  the  conviction  of  Larcher,  it 
was  more  than  believed  that  he  was  innocent ;  but, 
in  the  first  place,  M.  de  la  Reynie  had  his  own 
safety  and  position  to  consider,  and  somebody 
had  to  bear  the  brunt;  and  secondly,  riding 
very  hard  on  the  heels  of  it,  Larcher  was  a 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  249 

Protestant,  and  furthermore  guilty  of  the  enormity 
of  remaining  in  communication  with  his  child,  who 
had  been  sent  for  protection  to  England. 

The  pope  was  far  more  tolerant  in  his  desires  for 
dealing  with  the  French  Protestants,  than  was  the 
quartette  at  Versailles.  The  liberal  spirit  of  the  Gal- 
lican  Church  was  ignored  to  feed  the  contemptible 
ambition  of  the  converted  Fran9oise  d'Aubigne,  and 
to  lull  to  rest  the  conscience  of  the  pusillanimous  non- 
entity still  called  the  King  of  France.  The  persecu- 
tion of  the  Huguenots  was  carried  on  relentlessly  for 
fifteen  years ;  fire  and  sword,  and  rape  and  murder, 
were  the  lot  of  those  who  remained  to  brave  the 
booted  emissaries  of  M.  Louvois,  if  they  retaliated 
where  they  had  the  chance,  and  as  they  did  fiercely 
in  the  terrible  struggles  in  the  Ce*vennes.  Justice 
is  even-handed :  it  was  no  time  to  turn  the  cheek 
to  be  smitten.  Those  who  emigrated,  as  in  such 
thousands  they  did,  carried  with  them  the  com- 
merce and  the  prosperity  of  France.  Frugal  and 
industrious  for  the  most  part,  and  in  these  later 
days  at  least,  peacefully  disposed,  rarely  seeking 
more  than  to  be  let  alone,  they  were  the  mainstay 
of  the  country.  Richelieu  had  fully  recognised 
their  value,  and  followed  it  in  his  policy  with 
them.  The  "  Old  Woman  of  Versailles,"  as  she  was 
widely  called,  reversed  the  great  cardinal's  pro- 
visions, and  in  time  the  avengement  fell. 

The  clergy  generally  carried  out  the  orders 
issued  from  Versailles  for  the  extermination  of  the 
heretics.  Monseigneur  d'Orl^ans  and  the  Abbe* 
de  F&ielon  alone  resisted.  The  first  afforded 


250  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

time  for  the  Huguenots  to  make  their  preparations 
for  emigrating  from  France,  by  lodging  the  soldiery, 
sent  to  disperse  them  by  violence,  in  his  own 
palace,  and  maintaining  them  at  his  own  expense, 
forbidding  them  meanwhile  to  harm  any  one  of  the 
Huguenot  families  in  his  diocese.  For  Monsieur 
de  Fdnelon,  selected  to  superintend  the  raid  of  the 
booted  missionaries  in  Poitou  and  Saintonge,  he, 
like  the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  forbade  them  to  use 
violence,  and  brought  back  more  of  the  errant 
ones  into  the  Catholic  fold  by  his  sweet,  persuasive 
eloquence,  than  the  rest  of  the  priests  did,  with 
all  their  dragonnades  and  executioner  assistants, 
notwithstanding  the  view  of  Madame  de  Maintenon 
and  of  her  spiritual  director :  that  if  only  the 
holy  Apostles  had  employed  such  emissaries  of 
fire  and  sword,  the  Christian  religion  would  not 
have  been  half  so  long  in  establishing. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos'  Cercle— Madeleine  de  Scudeii— The 
Abbe  Dubois — "The  French  Calliope,"  and  the  Romance 
of  her  Life — "  Revenons  h  nos  Moutons  " — A  Resurrection  ? — 
Racine  and  his  Detractors — "  Esther" — Athalie  and  St  Cyr 
— Madame  Guyon  and  the  Quietists. 

AMONG  the  ladies  of  distinction  forming  the  cercle 
of  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  at  this  time,  were 
the  Countesses  de  la  Sabliere,  de  la  Fayette, 
and  de  SeVigne*,  de  Souvre*,  de  la  Suza,  d'Olonne, 
de  Sandwich,  the  Marquises  de  Wardes,  de 
Cre"quy,  de  St  Lambert ;  the  Duchesses  de 
Sully  and  de  Bouillon,  and  the  Mare*chales  de 
Castelnau  and  de  la  Ferte.  The  old  antagonism 
between  Ninon  and  Mademoiselle  de  Scude*ri  was 
smoothed  away  also  by  the  amiable  intervention 
of  Madame  de  Se*vign6,  and  the  autumn  of  the 
lives  of  these  two  women  was  cheered  by  the 
sunshine  of  a  genuine  friendship,  which,  however, 
Boileau  did  his  best  to  dull,  by  asserting  that  the 
famous  romanticist  of  her  day  did  not  merit  her 
popularity.  Ninon  succeeded  however,  in  bringing 
him  to  soften  his  severe  criticisms  on  Madeleine's 
works,  until  they  became  gentler  even  than  her 
own  views  of  the  voluminous  tales  which  she 
regarded  as  far  too  wordy,  and  almost  destitute 
of  the  passion  which  should  be  the  motive  power 
of  romance. 

Mademoiselle    de    Scude*ri     in     everyday    life 

251 


352  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

was,  however,  amiable  and  charming  in  manner 
and  conversation — so  that  her  personal  appear- 
ance, which  was  far  from  prepossessing,  hardly 
detracted  from  her  fascination.  She  was  plain 
of  feature,  and  of  masculine  build,  but  this  had 
not  come  in  the  way  of  the  idolatrous  admira- 
tion, in  former  days,  of  Conrard,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Academic  Franchise ;  and  Pelisson,  the  advo- 
cate and  faithful  friend  of  the  ill-fated  Fouquet, 
remained  true  as  ever  to  his  ardent  worship  of 
her.  The  years  of  Madeleine  de  ScudeVi  ran  even 
to  a  length  beyond  those  of  her  friend  Ninon. 
She  died  in  her  ninety-fourth  year. 

Among  the  brilliant  company  assembling  almost 
nightly  in  the  salon  of  the  rue  des  Tournelles,  one 
day  came,  unbidden  and  unwelcomed,  the  Abbe 
Dubois,  he  who  at  a  later  time  was  to  acquire  such 
a  prominent  position  at  the  Court  of  the  Regency, 
and  die  a  cardinal.  For  this  man,  more  notorious 
than  celebrated,  Ninon  conceived  an  instinctive 
dislike.  The  ferret  face  repelled  her,  but  she  did 
not  refuse  him  the  letter  of  introduction  he  sought 
of  her  to  Monsieur  de  St  Evr^mond  in  London, 
whither  he  was  bound. 

The  "French  Calliope,"  Madame  Deshoulieres, 
was  an  intimate  friend  of  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos. 
Her  career  was  romantic  and  even  heroic.  Her 
maiden  name  was  Anne  Antoinette  Ligier  de  la 
Garde,  she  was  a  goddaughter  of  Anne  of  Austria, 
who  held  her  at  the  font  when  she  was  christened. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  the  queen's  maitre  d  hotel, 
and  was  born  in  one  of  the  little  apartments  of  the 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  253 

Louvre.  Beauty  and  grace  and  high  talent  dis- 
tinguished her  as  she  grew  up.  Her  father  caused 
her  to  be  very  strictly  reared,  and  no  books  were  per- 
mitted her  except  philosophical  and  religious  works. 
One  day,  however,  she  detected  her  maid  reading 
one  of  the  pastoral  romances  of  d'Urfe*.  She  was 
immediately  fired  with  desire,  as  a  true  daughter 
of  Eve,  to  taste  of  the  delightful  fruit  of  the  vice  of 
romantic  fiction,  and  said  she  would  ask  her  father's 
permission  for  it.  This  frightened  the  bonne  so 
much,  that,  to  purchase  her  charge's  silence,  she 
offered  to  lend  her  the  interesting  history  of  The 
Shepherds  of  Lignon,  in  which  she  had  been  so  sur- 
reptitiously absorbed  ;  and  upon  these  followed  the 
novels  of  Calprenede  and  of  Madeleine  de  Scuderi. 
But  if  these  books  sufficed  for  all  the  intellectual 
needs  of  the  run  of  the  young  ladies  of  the  period, 
Antoinette  was  a  girl  of  brains,  and  soon  returned 
to  her  first  love  of  more  healthy  and  solid  literature, 
and  of  poetry ;  and  she  studied  for  some  time  the 
art  of  versification  under  Hesnaut,  whose  fame  is 
best  remembered  by  the  gifts  of  his  pupil. 

At  eighteen  she  became  the  wife  of  Monsieur  de 
Boisguerry,  Seigneur  Deshoulieres,  a  gentleman 
of  Poitou,  in  the  service  of  the  Prince  de  Conde*. 
The  queen  had  been  displeased  at  this  marriage, 
whereat  Monsieur  de  la  Garde  explained  that  his 
child  had  to  be  provided  for,  and  his  emolument  in 
Her  Majesty's  service  had  not  been  so  great  that  it 
could  be  forthcoming  from  that  source.  This 
offended  the  queen,  and  the  offence  was  aggravated 
by  the  suspicion  of  Frondeur  leanings  hanging 


254  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

about   him,  so   that   Antoinette's   dowry  from  her 
royal  godmother  was  but  a  small  one. 

Three  months  after  their  marriage,  Monsieur 
Deshoulieres  was  summoned  to  follow  Conde*  to 
Spain,  and  his  wife  returned  to  her  old  home,  which 
was,  however,  no  longer  at  the  Louvre,  but  in  a 
small  house  at  Auteuil. 

Here  she  spent  the  time  in  study,  finding  her 
chief  delight  in  the  philosophical  works  of  Gassendi, 
now  for  some  years  a  professor  of  the  College  of 
France.  On  the  return  of  her  husband  to  the 
frontier,  she  hastened  to  meet  him,  and  the  two 
repaired  to  Brussels,  where  the  Court  received  her 
with  high  distinction  ;  but  in  addition  to  her  acquire- 
ments, her  grace  and  beauty  won  her  admiration  so 
marked,  that  it  became  aggressive,  and  she  was 
forced  to  repulse  the  unwelcome  attentions  thrust 
upon  her.  This  turned  friends  into  enemies,  who 
satisfied  their  revenge  by  representing  her  as  a  spy 
of  Mazarin  and  of  the  queen — a  far-fetched  accu- 
sation enough,  which,  however,  obtained  wide 
credence. 

The  State  payments  to  her  husband  were  now 
withheld,  and  on  seeking  redress  from  the  minister 
she  was  decreed  an  arrest,  and  sent  for  imprison- 
ment to  Vilvorde,  where  she  was  doomed  to  spend 
fourteen  months  in  complete  solitude,  and  kept 
from  all  means  of  communication  with  her  friends. 
But  Antoinette's  girlhood  had  been  passed  in  the 
days  when  natural  feminine  weakness  had  been 
fortified  by  stirring  public  events,  and  Madame 
Deshoulieres  consoled  herself  with  theological 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  255 

study  during  the  time  of  her  imprisonment,  mainly 
of  the  Fathers,  from  Origen  to  St  Augustine. 

Only  after  alengthof  time  Monsieur  Deshoulieres 
discovered  the  prison  in  which  his  wife  was  immured. 
Having  ascertained  this,  he  formed  the  bold  project 
of  carrying  her  off.  To  this  end  he  engaged  forty 
men,  armed  them  to  the  teeth,  and  in  the  dead  of  a 
dark  night,  he  led  them  to  the  edge  of  the  moat  of 
the  Castle  of  Vilvorde,  at  its  narrowest  and  shallow- 
est part,  stationing  his  men  in  the  water,  which 
they  had  previously  filled  with  branches  and  mud, 
so  as  to  form  a  human  bridge.  Arrived  at  the  base 
of  the  wall,  he  fixed  a  ladder  to  the  ramparts,  and 
mounting,  followed  by  his  guard  with  stealthy 
caution,  overpowered  the  two  sentinels  and  gagged 
them.  Then  they  hastened  on  to  the  governor's 
bedroom,  and  putting  a  cord  round  his  neck  while 
he  was  in  profound  sleep,  and  a  musket  to  his  face, 
they  detained  him  in  durance  till  he  had  yielded  up 
the  keys  of  his  captive's  apartments,  and  of  the  doors 
of  the  fortress.  The  garrison  was  then  forced  to  lay 
down  arms,  and  entering  a  waiting  berline,  Monsieur 
Deshoulieres  and  his  rescued  wife  gained  in  a  few 
hours  the  ground  of  France. 

The  tidings  of  this  intrepid  act  travelled  as  fast  as 
they  did,  and  Le  Tellier,  the  Secretary  of  State,  pre- 
sented the  pair  to  the  queen  and  Mazarin.  Anne  of 
Austria  embraced  her  goddaughter  warmly,  a  general 
amnesty  was  proclaimed,  and  all  was  forgotten — so 
much  forgotten,  that  Mazarin  and  the  queen  omitted 
to  award  Deshoulieres  the  promised  arrears  of  pay, 
and  the  pension  which  was  to  reward  the  two.  The 


256  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

debts  and  liabilities  of  Deshoulieres  became  formid- 
able, and  he  had  no  alternative  but  to  obtain  a 
division  of  maintenance,  pay  up  from  his  own  small 
resources  all  he  could,  and  retire  with  his  wife  to 
live  on  the  slender  dowry  Anne  had  bestowed  on 
her  goddaughter.  It  did  not  nearly  suffice  for 
their  rank  and  position.  In  order  to  meet  their 
requirements,  Madame  Deshoulieres  devoted  herself 
to  her  pen,  and  her  verses,  first  published  in  the 
Mercure  Galant^  won  universal  admiration,  but  no 
money  reward.  Left  to  itself,  the  nature  of  the 
editor  ever  inclines  to  the  view  that  kudos  is 
enough  for  the  author,  and  this  particular  editor 
gave  his  contributor  to  understand  that  she  ought 
to  consider  herself  only  too  fortunate  to  have  made 
an  appearance  in  his  pages. 

Once  again  the  admirers  looked  askance  and 
grew  scornful  and  sarcastic,  and  the  humour  of 
Madame  Deshoulieres'  pen  acquiring  the  sombre 
tints  of  her  cruel  fortunes,  she  was  nicknamed  the 
"  Mendicant  Muse"  So,  with  the  addition  of  three 
children  to  maintain,  the  poor  woman  remained 
until  the  death  of  Monsieur  Deshoulieres,  forsaken 
by  her  old  troops  of  friends  and  admirers.  Then 
she  penned  the  immortal  trifle  beginning — 

"  Dans  ces  pres  fleuris 
Qu'  arrose  la  Seine, 
Cherchez  qui  vous  mene, 
Mes  cheres  brebis." 

It  was  her  charming  device  for  winning  the 
attention  and  generosity  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  attained 
its  end. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  257 

The  king  awarded  her  a  pension  of  two  thousand 
livres,  and  the  editor  of  the  Mercure  Galant,  lay- 
ing the  credit  of  this  good  fortune  to  his  own 
account,  straightened  out  things  by  continuing 
to  publish  Madame  Deshoulieres'  verses  gratis  in 
his  columns. 

Once  more  the  fine-weather  friends  flocked 
about  her,  and  belauded  her  attractions,  personal 
and  intellectual.  In  these  lay  no  exaggeration,  for 
Antoinette  Deshoulieres  was  exceptionally  gifted. 
Her  conversation  was  brilliant,  delicate,  and  spark- 
ling with  originality.  The  poets  chanted  her 
praises,  and  Benserade  changed  his  sobriquet  of 
the  "  Mendicant  Muse  "  to  the  "  Calliope  Franfaise" 
Among  other  well-remembered  trifles  from  her 
pen,  the  pretty  poem  of  Les  Oiseaux  is  to  be  re- 
corded. It  is  by  these  charming  productions  that 
the  memory  of  Antoinette  Deshoulieres  lives. 
Her  aims  in  graver  poetry  and  drama  fell  below 
their  mark.  For  her,  these  were  the  unattainable, 
and  possibly  it  was  failure  in  this  direction  which 
impelled  her  to  a  jealousy  unworthy  of  her  ex- 
cellent judgment  and  native  good  taste,  when  she 
rendered  high  praise  to  the  Phedre  of  Pradon, 
and  criticised  in  a  satirical  poem  the  grand  tragedy 
of  Racine  on  the  same  subject. 

From  every  point  of  view  it  was  a  lamentable 
mistake,  and  laid  her  open  to  storms  of  sarcastic 
abuse — 

"  Dans  un  fauteuil  dor6  Ph&dre  tremblante 

Et  bleme 
Dit  des  vers  ou  d'abord  personne  n'entend  rien." 


258  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

So  wrote  Madame  Deshoulieres,  and  the 
flippancy  on  the  tremendous  theme  evoked 
general  disgust.  "What  is  this  tumbled  from  the 
clouds  ? "  cried  Madame  de  la  Sabliere.  "  This 
sweet  and  interesting  shepherdess,  who  talked  so 
tenderly  to  her  sheep  and  flowers  and  birds, 
has  suddenly  changed  her  crook  into  a  serpent ! " 

Madame  de  S£vign6  preferred  to  be  entirely  of 
the  opinion  of  Madame  Deshoulieres,  but  if  envy  of 
the  great  tragic  poet  was  in  the  heart  of  the  one,  per- 
sonal animosity  was  beyond  question  in  that  of  the 
other ;  for  Madame  de  S6vigne"  had  never  forgiven 
either  Boileau  or  Racine  for  favouring  the  intrigue 
of  her  grandson,  de  Grignan  with  the  Champmesle'. 

Madame  Deshoulieres  burned  with  desire  for 
dramatic  honours,  and  she  wrote  a  tragedy  called 
Gense'ric.  It  was  a  feeble,  ill-constructed  piece  of 
work,  and  was  ill-received ;  but  it  was  not  to  be 
forgotten,  for  it  perpetuated  the  immortal  figure  of 
speech,  as  familiar  in  England  as  in  France,  of  the 
advice  to  her — "  Return  to  your  sheep  "  (anglice — 
"  Let  us  go  back  to  our  muttons  ").* 

Once  again  she  wooed  the  drama  in  the  guise  of 
comedy  and  opera ;  but  her  efforts  were  signal 
failures.  She  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-two,  of  the 
same  malady  as  her  godmother,  and,  like  her,  she 
bore  the  cruel  suffering  with  patience  and  resigna- 
tion, writing  in  the  intervals  of  pain  a  paraphrase 
of  the  Psalms,  and  her  Reflections  Morales,  one  of 
her  best  works.  Bossuet,  who  administered  to 
her  the  last  consolations  of  religion,  spoke  in  warm 
eulogy  of  those  last  days  of  hers. 

*  Maitre  Patelin. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  259 

A  singular  circumstance  disturbed  the  smooth 
flow  of  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos'  life  at  this  time. 
It  was  the  sudden  appearance  of  an  aged  woman 
who  declared  herself  to  be  Marion  Delorme,  and 
claiming  a  fifty-seven  years'  friendship  with  Ninon. 

She  declared  that  the  report  of  her  death  had 
been  false ;  that  the  doctor,  Guy  Patin,  had  not 
attended  her  funeral ;  but  had  saved  her  life,  and 
then  she  had  left  Paris  and  lived  out  of  France. 

Convinced  as  Ninon  was,  that  the  poor  woman 
was  demented,  or  attempting  to  impose  on  her,  she 
sent  to  the  Street  of  the  Dry  Tree,  where  Guy 
Patin  lived  ;  but  the  doctor  was  absent  in  Prussia, 
sharing  the  exile  of  his  son,  who  had  been  con- 
demned for  being  in  possession  of  six  copies  of  one 
of  the  libellous  pamphlets  that  made  life  hideous 
for  the  king  and  Madame  Louis  Quatorze,  and  no 
other  testimony,  for  or  against,  was  to  be  found.  The 
magistrate  to  whom  the  unhappy  creature  had  applied 
to  verify  her  identity,  hastened  a  little  later  to  assure 
Ninon  that  to  communicate  with  Guy  Patin  would 
be  troubling  him  to  no  purpose ;  since  the  Marion 
Delorme,  as  she  called  herself,  had  given  unmis- 
takable proof  of  madness,  and  she  had  been  placed 
in  the  Hotel  Dieu.  So  the  matter  ended. 

The  shafts,  impotent  as  they  were,  of  Madame 
Deshoulieres  had  an  evil  effect  on  Racine.  Ninon, 
warmly  seconded  by  St  Evre*mond  especially, 
endeavoured  to  win  the  great  tragic  poet  from 
his  exclusive  associations  with  the  Court ;  but 
he  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  every  argument.  It  is 
possible  that  the  atmosphere  of  Versailles,  as  it 


260  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

prevailed  under  the  ordering  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  tainted  and  unhealthy  as  it  was  with 
pharisaical  "  piety,"  assorted  with  the  sentiments 
of  gloom  ill-health  had  fostered,  for  Racine 
suffered  cruelly,  long  before  his  death,  from  an 
abscess  on  the  liver.  Moreover,  by  education  and 
rearing  he  was  a  Port  Royalist,  and  the  tenets  of 
Jansenism  could  but  have  run  in  his  blood.  In 
her  earlier  time  Madame  de  Maintenon  had  looked 
favourably  on  these  Calvinistic  sectaries  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  only  at  a  later  date  it  was  that 
the  rupture  occurred  with  the  Abbe*  Fenelon  and 
Madame  Guyon,  the  notable  advocate  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Quietest,  Michael  Molinos  the 
Spanish  monk.  Madame  Guyon,  whose  maiden 
name  was  de  la  Motte,  evinced  mystic  tendencies 
even  as  a  child.  As  she  grew  up,  it  was  her  wish 
to  enter  a  convent ;  but  her  parents  prevented  this, 
and  she  was  married  at  sixteen.  At  eight-and- 
twenty  she  became  a  widow,  and  then  the  old 
mystic  sentiments  began  to  rule  her  more 
dominantly  than  ever.  This  was  further  fostered 
in  her  by  her  confessor  and  other  ecclesiastics 
about  her,  who  persuaded  her  that  she  was 
destined  by  Heaven  to  be  a  powerful  agent  for 
the  advancement  of  religion. 

"  Still  young,"  says  Voltaire,  "  with  beauty,  riches,  and 
a  mind  fitted  for  society,  she  became  infatuated  with 
what  is  called  spiritualism.  Her  confessor  whose  name 
was  Lacombe,  a  man  of  a  nature  at  once  passionate  and 
devout,  and  who  died  mad,  plunged  the  mind  of  his 
penitent  deeper  into  the  mystic  reveries  by  which  it  was 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  261 

already  affected.  Her  doctrine,"  Voltaire  goes  on  to  say, 
"  was  a  complete  renunciation  of  self,  the  silence  of  the 
soul,  the  annihilation  of  all  its  faculties,  internal  worship, 
and  the  pure  and  disinterested  love  of  God,  which  is  neither 
degraded  by  fear  nor  animated  by  the  hope  of  reward." 

There  were  times,  however,  that  religious 
enthusiasm,  following  its  customary  tendency,  be- 
trayed her  into  extravagance,  and  absurdities  of 
speech  in  her  efforts  to  explain  her  views. 

By  her  written  treatises,  and  by  her  orations, 
Madame  Guyon  made  many  proselytes.  For  five 
years  she  travelled  from  place  to  place  in  Piedmont 
and  Dauphine ;  then  returning  to  Paris,  she  con- 
tinued her  labours  for  two  years,  uninterfered  with. 
Suddenly  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  one  of  the  most 
infamously  profligate  of  priests  on  record,  Harlay 
de  Chamvallon,  found  himself  horrified  at  dis- 
covering that  Madame  Guyon's  teaching  was  neither 
more  nor  less  than  that  of  Molinos,  whose  Jan- 
senist  theories  of  grace  and  free-will  were  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  Jesuitical  tenets,  then,  of  course, 
all-dominant  at  Versailles.  He  pretended  to  hold 
Father  Lacombe  as  a  seducer,  and  sent  him  to  the 
Bastille ;  while  Madame  Guyon  was  put  under 
arrest  into  the  convent  of  the  Visitandines,  where 
she  won  universal  love,  and  many  believers  in  her 
mild  faith.  From  here  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who 
had  made  her  acquaintance  at  Ninon's  house,  and 
bore  her  considerable  affection  and  esteem,  freed 
her,  and  gave  her  a  home  in  St  Cyr.  There  she 
was  introduced  to  Fe*nelon,  and  they  formed  their 
firm  and  life-long  friendship. 


262  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Madame  de  Maintenon,  however,  instigated 
by  the  bigoted  Bishop  of  Chartres,  who  was 
director  of  the  consciences  of  the  young  ladies  of 
St  Cyr  and  their  teachers,  ere  long  withdrew  her 
favour,  falling  in  also  with  the  prejudices  the  king 
had  against  her.  Among  other  persecutions  to  which 
she  was  now  subjected,  was  the  production  of  a 
letter  from  Lacombe,  or  purporting  to  be  from  him, 
exhorting  her  to  repent  of  her  criminal  intimacy 
with  him.  The  unhappy  man,  always  of  a  highly 
nervous,  excitable  nature,  had  now  long  been  insane, 
and  the  accusation  was  believed  by  no  one.  Later, 
she  was  again  imprisoned  at  Vincennes,  and  in  the 
Bastille,  whence  she  was  delivered  by  de  Noailles, 
the  successor  of  the  infamous  Harlay.  But  here 
her  sufferings  did  not  end.  Once  more  she  was 
imprisoned  in  the  Bastille,  and  finally  she  was 
exiled  to  Blois,  where  she  spent  the  last  fifteen 
years  of  her  life,  in  acts  of  charity  and  piety, 
graced  ever  by  unswerving  patience ;  but  while 
occasionally  betrayed  into  extravagance  of  ex- 
pression on  religious  points,  her  common  sense  and 
excellent  judgment  in  everyday  matters  were 
remarkable. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A  Grave  Question — The  Troublesome  Brother-in-Law — "  No 
Vocation  " — The  Duke's  Choice — Peace  for  la  Grande  Made- 
moiselle— An  Invitation  to  Versailles — Behind  the  Arras — 
Between  the  Alternatives — D'Aubigne's  Shadow — A  Broken 
Friendship. 

WHILE  the  persecution  of  His  Majesty's  Protestant 
subjects  was  being  ruthlessly  carried  on  by  fire 
and  sword,  and  dragonnading  generally,  a  matter 
of  the  gravest  moment  was  under  consideration  at 
Versailles,  and  there  was  wide  division  of  opinion 
in  high  places.  It  was  on  the  question  of  the 
Fontanges  head-gear,  and  for  once  the  king  openly 
set  his  face  against  that  of  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
which,  he  declared,  now  appeared  in  the  middle  of 
her  body,  and,  he  added,  by  no  means  enhanced  its 
charm  ;  for  the  height  of  the  ugly  head-dress  had 
risen  to  two  feet.  Eloquence,  mild  argument, 
raillery  and  angry  words  from  the  Grand  Monarque, 
however,  simply  fell  on  stony  ground.  Two 
gauze  horns  had  been  added  to  the  abominable 
structure  of  whalebone,  ribbon,  horsehair,  etc.,  etc. 
These  projections  were  fixed  behind  the  ears,  and 
carried  upward,  crowning  the  work.  The  Sun- 
King's  defeat  was  complete,  "  Vires  acquirit  eundo. 
Nee  pluribus  impar"  :  his  mottoes  were  ever  mock- 
ing him,  and  lest  the  Fontanges  should  mount  higher 
still,  he  said  no  more. 

He  had  better  success  on  the  frontiers,  where 

263 


264  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Catinat  in  Piedmont,  and  Luxembourg  in  Flanders, 
brilliant  pupil  of  Conde*,  routed  the  enemy.  In 
this  expedition  Madame  de  Maintenon  secured  the 
advancement  of  de  Villars,  the  lover  who  had  con- 
soled her  days  of  widowhood  ;  and  the  first  step  to 
glory  made,  he  mounted  rapidly,  proving  himself 
one  of  the  bravest  of  the  campaign. 

Another  thorn  in  the  side  of  Louis,  or  rather 
more  absolutely  of  Madame,  was  her  brother. 
Years  had  not  mended  d'Aubigne^s  ways ;  he  was 
just  the  same  vaurien  of  a  bon  viveur  and  gourmet, 
he  had  been  in  his  bouts  with  Scarron. 

De  Santeuil,  the  poet-canon  who  had  been  one 
of  the  party  when  Ninon  travelled  to  Rome,  was 
now  d'Aubignd's  Fidus  Achates,  and  they  were 
fairly  evenly  matched  in  their  modes  of  life. 
Santeuil  was  invited  one  morning  by  Ninon  to 
breakfast  with  her.  D'Aubigne*  naturally  came  too, 
expressing  himself  delighted,  he  said,  to  kiss 
Ninon's  hand  once  more  after  such  an  interval 
of  years.  He  inquired  whether  she  still  kept 
up  her  acquaintance  with  his  btgueule  of  a 
sister. 

"  Is  it  so  you  speak  of  a  person  who  has  made 
the  glory  of  your  family  ?  "  demanded  Ninon. 

D'Aubigne*  did  not  regard  the  case  at  all  in 
this  light.  It  was  a  good  joke  to  call  her  that,  he 
said,  and  added  that  he  was  furious  against  his 
brother-in-law.  "  Don't  you  know  why  ?"  he  went 
on,  planting  his  hands  on  his  hips  in  truculent 
fashion.  "  Are  you  not  aware  of  the  persecutions 
and  insults  Frangoise  treats  me  to?  Well,  we'll 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  265 

have  breakfast  first,  and  then  I'll  tell  you."  And 
having  fortified  himself  with  a  bumper  or  two 
of  Burgundy,  he  went  on.  "  Only  imagine,  that 
this  infernal  bigot — Oh  well,"  he  continued,  when 
Ninon  reminded  him  that  she  and  Fran9oise  were 
still  on  terms  of  friendship,  "you  can  tell  her  what 
I  say.  It  is  all  the  same  to  me,  and  if  my  brother- 
in-law  has  anything  to  grumble  at  in  it,  let  him 
out  with  it.  Prison?  flames  and  fury !  I'll  pin  my 
dagger  into  any  of  them  who  dare  to  lay  hand  on 
me,  and  there  you  have  it.  They  won't  silence 
me !  Head  of  the  family  indeed  !  That's  me  ! — and 
so  much  the  worse  for  Louis  Dieudonne* !  taking 
it  into  his  head  to  marry  my  sister  !  Prudence  ?  "  he 
went  on,  when  his  hostess  suggested  its  adoption, 
"  it  is  the  mother  of  all  the  vices — a  watchword  only 
for  cowards.  Franchise  is  my  sister,  and  I'll  have 
them  pay  me  proper  respect."  Then  d'Aubigne, 
having  mercilessly  criticised  the  mature  attractions 
of  Franchise,  went  on  to  say  that  he  loved  her, 
and  if  need  were,  would  protect  her  at  the  sword's 
point ;  but  that  because  she  was  saintly  and 
surrounded  herself  with  Jesuits,  it  was  no  reason 
why  he  should  be  made  a  monk.  Yes,  that  was 
her  plan.  She  and  the  brother-in-law  greatly 
desired  that  he  should  shut  himself  up  in  St 
Sulpice,  where  the  livelong  day  was  spent  in 
reading  litanies.  B-r-r-r-r-t ! "  shivered  'dAubigne*. 
"Me!"  he  added,  when  Santeuil  said  if  he  did 
such  a  thing,  he  would  excommunicate  him — "  I 
would  sooner  be  chopped  to  mincemeat  by  the 
dragonnadts" 


266  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Santeuil  suggested  that  he  might  prefer  enter- 
ing St  Cyr  to  St  Sulpice. 

But  d'Aubigne  replied  that  the  inmates  of  St 
Cyr  would  be  too  much  of  his  sister's  mould  for  his 
fancy.  Ninon  was  disturbed  at  this  forcible  lan- 
guage, which  she  had  very  good  reason  to  believe 
was  not  reserved  for  her  ear  alone ;  but  that 
d'Aubigne  exploded  in  much  the  same  fashion  in 
the  taverns  and  the  avenues  and  public  gardens, 
and  possibly  also  even  in  the  galleries  of  Versailles, 
where  he  had  access.  She  took  Santeuil  aside, 
and  begged  him  to  use  his  influence  in  restraining 
his  friend's  ebullitions.  But  Santeuil  was  in  no  mind 
to  do  anything  of  the  kind ;  he  said  it  was  only  just 
and  proper  that  the  widow  Scarron,  who  had  not 
always  been  a  saint,  should  meet  with  those  little 
contrarieties,  and  the  matter  must  settle  itself  in 
its  own  way.  Soon  after  this,  Santeuil,  who  was  a 
great  favourite  with  all  the  family  of  the  Condes,  on 
account  of  his  wit  and  gaiety  of  disposition,  was 
invited  to  spend  the  summer  at  Dijon ;  and 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  finding  her  brother  thus 
unprotected,  used  every  endeavour  to  persuade  him 
to  enter  St  Sulpice.  In  any  case,  however, 
d'Aubigne  said  he  saw  no  reason  to  hurry  over 
the  step. 

That  same  year  the  marriage  took  place  of  the 
Due  du  Maine,  the  eldest  son  of  Madame  de 
Montespan.  The  bride  was  neither  intelligent  or 
beautiful,  but  she  was  huge  of  frame,  and  the  duke, 
entertaining  a  passion  for  gigantic  women,  selected 
her  from  a  trio  of  ladies,  one  of  whom  was  adorably 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  267 

beautiful,  and  the  other  rejected  one  brilliantly 
gifted  and  accomplished. 

And  almost  within  the  days  of  those  marriage 
festivities  at  Versailles,  la  Grande  Mademoiselle 
lay  dying  in  the  Luxembourg,  and  she  sent  for 
Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos,  very  much  to  the  sur- 
prise of  that  lady  ;  for  the  two  had  not  met  after  the 
misunderstanding  created  by  the  machinations  of 
Madame  de  Fiesque.  Only  that  morning,  it 
appeared,  Madame  de  Fiesque  had  made  clean 
acknowledgment  to  the  dying  woman  of  the  real 
facts  of  the  rupture ;  and  now,  sorely  distressed, 
she  begged  Ninon's  forgiveness,  and  to  extend  it 
to  the  far  greater  offender,  Madame  de  Fiesque 
herself.  Ninon  replied  that  this  was  freely 
accorded.  Her  child  was  happy  in  the  love  of  a 
good  man.  It  was  enough  ;  and  she  turned  and 
held  out  her  hand  to  Madame  de  Fiesque,  who  sat 
sobbing  in  a  corner  of  the  room.  Just  at  that 
moment  a  lady  of  honour  entered,  to  say  that 
Monsieur  de  Lauzun  was  at  the  door,  desiring  an 
interview  ;  but  the  dying  woman  refused,  entreating 
that  he  should  not  be  admitted.  "If  you  but  knew, 
Ninon,  how  wretched  he  has  made  my  life,"  she 
gasped  out.  "  Oh,  I  have  cruelly  expiated  all  my 
folly.  There  was  never  any  bond  blessed  by 
Heaven  between  us.  It  was  no  more  than  a 
liaison.  May  God  forgive  me,  since  my  suffering 
has  been  so  great."  And  so,  two  hours  later,  she 
died. 

The  noble  traits  in  the  disposition  of  the 
daughter  of  Gaston  d'Orleans  deserved  a  happier 


268  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

fate  than  to  be  the  tool  of  a  selfish  coxcomb  like 
Lauzun,  who  was,  however,  himself  not  destitute  of 
good  qualities;  but  whose  best  memory  stands 
recorded  by  the  patience  and  fortitude  with  which 
he  endured  the  terrible  suffering  of  a  cancer  in  the 
mouth,  of  which  he  died  at  the  age  of  more  than 
ninety.  The  woman  whose  infatuation  for  him 
was  so  great  as  to  sacrifice  the  natural  dignity 
which  distinguished  her,  was  no  ordinary  character. 
Dignified  she  was,  but  without  pride,  and  a 
pleasant  and  clever  conversationalist.  True  in 
friendship,  gentle  and  sensible,  and  incapable  of 
any  mean  or  base  action.  If  sometimes  her  sus- 
ceptible, sensitive  temperament  betrayed  her  into 
anger,  she  would  quickly  pour  balm  on  the  wound 
she  had  caused,  by  gracious  and  tender  words  and 
caresses.  She  had  the  courage  of  a  soldier,  and 
would  endure  fatigue,  and  face  danger  as  one  of 
the  bravest.  It  is  only  the  fate  of  ardent,  generous 
souls  like  hers,  if  sometimes  she  was  betrayed  into 
the  many  nets  which  greed,  jealousy  and  base 
cunning  are  always  at  hand  to  spread,  for  rendering 
nobler  natures  wretched.  Mademoiselle  de  Mont- 
pensier  was,  in  one  word,  a  true  descendant  of  her 
grandfather,  Henri  IV. 

Lauzun,  exiled  as  he  had  been,  from  Versailles, 
soon  after  passed  over  to  England,  where  he  con- 
trived to  make  himself  useful  by  conducting  the 
queen  and  infant  prince  of  James  II.  safely  to 
France,  during  the  revolution  of  '88.  Louis,  who 
received  the  dethroned  English  king  with  great 
demonstration  of  sympathy  and  magnificence,  and 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  269 

gave  the  exiles  his  palace  of  St  Germains  for  their 
home,  was  thus  again  brought  into  direct  com- 
munication with  Lauzun,  who,  being  readmitted  to 
royal  favour,  was  created  a  duke  ;  but  he  never 
really  regained  the  confidence  of  Louis. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  Mademoiselle, 
he  presented  himself  at  the  palace,  attired  in  a 
magnificent  mourning  cloak.  This  so  angered 
Louis,  that  Lauzun  ran  a  parlous  risk  of  once  more 
taking  the  road  to  Pignerol. 

All  that  remained  of  la  Grande  Mademoiselle's 
possessions  was  now  proposed  to  be  given  to  the 
illegitimate  and  legitimatized  children  of  the  king  ; 
but  precisely  how  to  deal  with  Lauzun  and  his 
wealth,  acquired  from  Mademoiselle  de  Montpen- 
sier,  was  not  so  apparent,  since  the  question  still  re- 
mained open,  whether  Mademoiselle  had  been  his 
lawful  wife.  No  one  knew  for  certain,  and  Madame 
de  Maintenon  conceived  the  ingenious  idea  of  try- 
ing to  worm  the  true  state  of  the  case  from  Ninon, 
whom  she  knew  had  been  summoned  to  Made- 
moiselle's dying  bed,  feeling  persuaded  that 
Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  was  acquainted  with  it. 
She  accordingly  begged  her,  in  a  little  note  very 
affectionately  worded,  to  come  to  Versailles. 

Ninon  was  greatly  tempted  to  reply  that  if 
Franchise  desired  to  speak  to  her,  she  might  be  at 
the  trouble  of  coming  to  the  rue  des  Tournelles. 
All  circumstances  taken  into  account,  and  the 
generosity  with  which  she  had  treated  Franchise's 
little  ways,  it  did  not  appear  to  her  that  she  was 
bound  to  wait  upon  the  woman,  merely  because  she 


270  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

had  lighted  upon  the  lucky  number  in  life's  lottery. 
Ninon,  however,  was  but  a  daughter  of  Eve.  Curi- 
osity was  strong  to  see  how  Madame  Louis  Quatorze 
lived  in  the  lordly  pleasure-house,  and  forthwith 
she  obeyed  the  summons. 

Queen  Maria  Theresa's  surroundings  and  re- 
tinue had  been  modest  enough  even  to  parsimony. 
Madame  Louis  Quatorze  was  attended  by  a 
numerous  guard,  a  train  of  pages,  Swiss  door- 
keepers, and  the  rest ;  while  her  Court  and 
receptions  were  as  magnificent  as  those  of  the 
king.  Madame  took  herself  very  seriously,  and 
her  deportment  had  become  most  majestic.  To 
Ninon,  however,  she  unbent,  and  was  simply  the 
Frangoise  of  old  times.  She  led  her  into  her  own 
richly  furnished  private  boudoir,  adorned  with  a 
curious  conglomerate  of  pictures  and  statuary, 
Christian  and  pagan,  where  an  enormous,  life-sized 
figure  of  Christ,  in  carved  ivory,  was  neighboured 
by  painted  Jupiters  and  other  Olympian  deities,  in 
curiously  heterogeneous  fashion.  There  Frangoise 
embraced  Ninon  with  quite  a  prodigality  of  affec- 
tion. Suddenly,  however,  her  manner  changed ;  she 
congealed  into  gravity  and  tones  of  great  solemnity, 
and  Ninon  saw  the  tapestry  folds  along  the  wall 
quiver  slightly.  It  occurred  to  her  that  one  only, 
His  Majesty  Louis  XIV.,  could  have  any  possible 
right  to  be  present  in  that  most  private  apartment, 
and  even  then  she  felt  the  need  of  putting  a  strong 
restraint  upon  herself  and  her  foot,  to  prevent  it 
from  bestowing  a  kick  upon  the  tapestry.  Then 
the  truth  began  to  come  out,  the  lamentable  truth  that 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  271 

Madame  and  the  king  were  greatly  perplexed  as  to 
the  best  mode  of  dealing  with  the  Due  de  Lauzan, 
whose  possessions,  made  over  to  him  by  the  Grande 
Mademoiselle,  those,  that  is  to  say,  which  he  still 
held,  were  much  wanted  for  the  king's  children. 
He  had  so  many,  as  Madame  de  Maintenon  pointed 
out.  That,  admitted  Ninon,  was  true  enough, 
"but  I  will  engage,  you  will  not  be  increasing  the 
number,"  she  added.  "  What  is  the  point  of  the 
question?"  It  was  whether  Mademoiselle  had 
really  married  Monsieur  de  Lauzun. 

The  full  significance  of  it  all  now  dawned  upon 
Ninon.  Had  Mademoiselle  not  been  his  wife,  it 
would  be  a  comparatively  simple  matter  to  compel 
a  revocation  of  the  gifts  which  the  princess  had 
made  him  in  the  course  of  her  life,  in  order  that 
these  should  enrich  the  children  of  de  Montespan. 
No  consideration  was  yielded  to  the  fact  that,  be 
Lauzun  what  he  might,  the  gifts  had  been  tokens  of 
Mademoiselle's  affection  for  him.  Ninon  preferred 
complete  inability  to  afford  any  trustworthy  sort  of 
information  on  this  head,  and  suggested  applying 
for  it  to  Madame  de  Fiesque,  who  might  be  better 
instructed:  "  but,"  continued  Ninon,  "supposing 
Mademoiselle  was  not  his  wife,  surely  to  publish 
the  fact,  would  create  a  scandal  which  His  Majesty 
would  consider  paying  too  dear  a  price  for  the 
estates  of  Auvergne  and  St  Fargeau.  Either  she 
was  Lauzun's  wedded  wife  or — " 

Here  the  chronicle  goes  on  to  relate  :  Made- 
moiselle de  L'Enclos'  words  were  interrupted  by  a 
tremendous  disturbance  at  the  door,  occasioned  by 


272  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

an  altercation  with  the  guards,  of  some  person  en- 
deavouring to  force  his  way  in.  The  voice  was 
d'Aubigne"'s,  and  the  next  instant  he  reeled  in,  far 
gone  in  a  state  of  intoxication,  and  staggering  to 
his  sister,  he  gripped  her  by  the  arm  and  thrust 
her  back  into  the  chair  from  which  she  had  risen. 

This  chronicle  goes  on  to  relate  a  terrible  scene, 
over  which,  for  the  honour  of  human  nature,  some 
kind  of  veil  may  be  allowed  to  hang,  lest  veracious 
history  has  been  embroidered  by  the  ample  material 
fact  has  afforded.  The  family  differences  of  private 
domestic  relations  are  frequently  unedifying ;  but 
when  it  comes  to  the  base  humiliating  of  a  great 
monarch,  one  in  whose  very  vices  and  mistakes 
grace  and  virtue  had  been  apparent,  until  the  widow 
Scarron  crossed  his  path,  pen  may  well  refrain  from 
detail,  and  explain  only  that  the  intruder,  d'Aubigne", 
had  burst  in  upon  his  sister,  to  reproach  her  for  her 
treachery  in  the  matter  of  inducing  him  to  enter 
St  Sulpice.  Taking  advantage  of  the  absence  of  his 
mentor  and  alter  ego,  Santeuil,  she  had  contrived 
to  trap  him  by  false  promises  and  misrepresentation 
into  the  hated  place.  His  liberty  for  one  thing,  and 
of  all  things  prized  by  d'Aubigne",  would  not,  she  had 
said,  be  curtailed  ;  it  had,  however,  been  so  entirely 
denied  him,  that  when  he  had  attempted  to  leave, 
he  had  been  unceremoniously  "  clapped,"  as  he 
phrased  it,  "  into  a  cellar,"  and  he  had  only  escaped 
by  wriggling  through  an  air-grating.  To  any  one 
possessed  of  the  faintest  sense  of  humour,  the  notion 
of  making  a  monk  of  any  sort  of  this  wild  harum- 
scarum  would  have  seemed  too  preposterous ;  but 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  273 

the  sense,  always  so  lacking  in  Fran9oise  d' Aubigne, 
allowed  her  to  indulge  in  only  too  many  absurdities 
whose  ending  was  disastrous  ;  and  in  any  case,  the 
notion  of  removing  the  incommoding  one  from  the 
taverns  and  cafes  and  other  public  resorts  where  he 
freely  gave  utterance  to  his  estimate  of  Madame 
Louis  Quatorze,  and  notably  of  her  newly  acquired 
saintliness,  was  dominant  in  her,  and  to  be  achieved 
at  any  cost.  She  earnestly  desired  his  conversion, 
possibly  if  only  to  silence  the  hideous  music  of  the 
ditty,  whose  refrain  he  was  for  ever  chanting  in  the 
streets,  echoed  by  so  many  ribald  tongues — 

"  Tu  n'as  que  les  restes, 

Toil 
Tu  n'as  que  nos  restes ! " 

Since  the  chronicle  goes  on  to  tell  that  Louis 
the  king  was  concealed  behind  the  tapestry  during 
the  interview  of  Madame  and  her  old  friend  Ninon, 
the  appearance  of  d'Aubigne,  with  his  string  of 
furious  reproach,  was  of  course  singularly  inoppor- 
tune ;  and  at  last  the  king,  unable  any  longer  to 
restrain  his  wrath,  dashed  aside  the  concealing 
Gobelins,  and  white  with  anger,  and  his  eyes  blazing 
with  indignation,  ordered  the  culprit's  arrest  by  the 
guards,  and  carrying  off  to  the  Bastille.  Confounded 
by  the  unexpected  apparition,  d'Aubignd's  sober 
sense  returned,  and  he  promised  everything  re- 
quired of  him  with  the  humblest  contrition,  adding 
that  if  he  might  suggest  the  homely  proverb  in  that 
august  presence,  there  was  nothing  like  washing 
one's  soiled  linen  at  home. 


274  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

The  king's  silence  yielded  consent,  and 
d'Aubigne  was  permitted  to  depart  from  his 
brother-in-law's  presence  a  free  man,  on  condition 
of  making  St  Sulpice  his  headquarters.  It  was  at 
least  preferable  to  a  lodging  in  one  of  the  Bastille 
towers,  he  said,  but  any  restraint  or  treachery  on 
the  part  of  Fran9oise,  or  of  Louis,  in  the  way  of  his 
coming  and  going  into  what  he  called  that  black- 
beetle  trap  of  St  Sulpice,  would  be  at  once  signalised. 
And  thus  the  difficulty  was  adjusted,  a  compromise 
being  effected  by  appointing  a  certain  Abb6  Madot 
to  shadow  the  ways  of  d' Aubigne"  when  he  took  his 
walks  abroad. 

But  for  Ninon  the  malice  of  her  old  friend  took 
on  virulence,  and  it  was  found  later  that  Franchise 
charged  her  with  having  planned  the  scandalous 
scene,  in  so  far  as  bringing  d'Aubign^  into  it ;  that 
she  had  connived  at  his  coming  just  at  that  moment. 
Yet  exactly,  except  for  the  king's  concealed  presence, 
what  overwhelming  harm  would  have  ensued,  is 
not  apparent,  and  certainly  for  that  situation,  Ninon 
could  not  have  been  responsible.  Henceforth  all 
shadow  of  friendship  between  the  two  women  died 
out,  and  enmity  and  bitterness  were  to  supervene 
when  opportunity  should  be  ripe. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

The  Falling  of  the  Leaves — Galilean  Rights — "The  Eagle  of 
Meaux" — Conde's  Funeral  Oration — The  Abbe  Gedouin's 
Theory — A  Bag  of  Bones — Marriage  and  Sugar-plums — 
The  Valour  of  Monsieur  du  Maine — The  King's  Repentance 
— The  next  Campaign — La  Fontaine  and  Madame  de 
Sabliere — MM.  de  Port  Royal — The  Fate  of  Madame 
Guyon — "  Mademoiselle  Balbien." 

AND  time  passed  on — passed  on.  The  brilliant 
century  was  in  its  sere  and  yellow  leaf,  and  one  of 
the  best  and  most  amiable  of  the  glorious  band, 
le  Notre,  the  gardener  par  excellence,  faded  and 
died,  to  the  great  grief  of  Louis,  who  dearly  loved 
his  company,  and  would  walk  by  his  chair  in  the 
garden  of  Versailles,  when  the  invalid's  limbs  had 
failed  him.  Ninon  keenly  felt  the  loss  of  the  kindly 
friend,  who  had  been  one  of  the  party  to  Rome 
with  Santeuil — who  had  nearly  missed  the  papal 
benediction  on  his  hymns,  as  he  always  believed, 
by  his  witticisms  about  the  carp.  And  now  the 
good  canon  was  to  die,  victim  of  a  practical  joke 
on  the  part  of  the  young  Due  de  Conde,  who 
amused  himself  with  emptying  the  contents  of  his 
snuff-box  into  his  guest's  glass  of  champagne. 
Unawares,  Santeuil  drained  the  glass;  and  the 
hideous  concoction  produced  a  fit  of  such  con 
vulsive  sickness,  that  he  died  of  it.  Bitterly 
enough  Conde  repented,  but  that  did  not  bring 
back  his  friend. 

275 


276  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

About  the  time  that  the  zenith  of  Louis's  power 
was  attained,  when  his  very  name  was  uttered  on 
the  bated  breath  of  admiration,  hatred  and  terror — 
and  the  yoke  of  the  widow  Scarron  had  not  yet 
entangled  him — and  while  the  Doge  of  Genoa  was 
compelled  by  Duquesne  to  sue  for  mercy  at  the 
feet  of  the  French  monarch — accused  of  complicity 
with  the  pirates  of  the  Mediterranean — the  Court 
of  Rome  was  compelled  to  yield  to  the  demands  of 
the  Church  in  France,  in  the  matter  of  the  r&gale. 
This  right,  which  had  ever  been  the  strength  and 
mainstay  of  religious  Catholic  independence  in 
France,  had  fallen  in  later  days  somewhat  into 
abeyance  ;  and  when,  some  nine  years  earlier,  it  had 
been  put  into  active  force  again,  the  pope  opposed 
it.  To  establish  it  on  a  firm  footing  was  the  work 
of  Bossuet,  who  set  forth  and  substantiated  with  the 
bishops  of  the  dioceses  of  France  the  existing 
constitution  of  the  Gallican  Church  under  the  ruling 
of  the  four  famous  articles  :  i.  That  ecclesiastical 
power  had  no  hold  upon  the  temporal  government 
of  princes.  2.  That  a  General  Council  was  superior 
to  the  pope.  3.  That  the  canons  could  regulate 
apostolical  power  and  general  ecclesiastical  usage. 
4.  That  the  judgment  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  is 
only  infallible  after  the  universal  and  general 
consent  of  the  Church. 

The  pope  and  the  Court  of  Rome  had  no  choice 
but  finally  to  accept  these  propositions ;  but  un- 
palatable as  they  were,  they  came  between  the  worse 
evil  threatening  Catholic  Unity,  of  a  schism  such  as  it 
had  suffered  in  England  under  Elizabeth  and  Henry. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  277 

The  splendid  gifts  of  Bossuet  place  his  memory 
on  a  lasting  and  lofty  eminence,  as  it  placed 
him,  living,  in  distinguished  positions,  Bishop  of 
Meaux,  preacher  at  the  Louvre,  preceptor  to  the 
Dauphin.  From  his  profound  theological  learning 
welled  forth  the  splendid  eloquence  which  thrilled 
the  vast  assemblages  flocking  to  drink  in  his 
orations.  One  of  the  most  magnificent  among  these 
was  that  at  the  obsequies  of  the  great  Conde, 
beginning — 

"  Cast  your  gaze  around  ;  see  all  that  magnificence  and 
piety  has  endeavoured  to  do,  to  render  honour  to  the 
hero :  titles,  inscriptions,  vain  records  of  what  no  longer 
exists,  the  weeping  figures  around  the  tomb  and  fragile 
images  of  a  grief  which  Time,  with  all  the  rest,  will  bear 
away  with  it,  columns  which  appear  to  lift  to  high  heaven 
their  magnificent  testimony  to  him  who  is  gone;  and 
nothing  is  lacking  in  all  this  homage  but  him  to 
whom  it  is  given.  .  .  .  For  me,  if  it  is  permitted  to  join 
with  the  rest  in  rendering  the  last  duties  beside  your 
tomb,  O  Prince  !  noble  and  worthy  subject  of  our  praise 
and  of  our  regrets,  you  will  live  eternally  in  my  memory. 
I  shall  see  you  always,  not  in  the  pride  of  victory  .  .  .  but 
as  you  were  in  those  last  hours  under  God's  hand,  when 
His  glory  was  breaking  on  you.  It  is  thus  I  shall  see  you 
yet  more  greatly  triumphing  than  at  Fribourg  and  at 
Rocroi  .  .  .  And  in  the  words  of  the  best-beloved  disciple,  I 
shall  give  thanks  and  say — 'The  true  victory  is  that 
which  overcometh  the  world — even  our  faith.'" 

A  noble  purity  of  spirit  and  deep  conviction 
inspired  Bossuet's  eloquence.  His  knowledge  was 
limited  by  his  Jesuit  training,  though  he  studied 
anatomy  at  a  later  period,  by  the  king's  desire,  in 
order  to  instruct  the  Dauphin  in  the  science  ;  but 


278  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

with  science  generally  and  physics  he  was 
unacquainted.  As  a  Jesuit  he  was  opposed  to 
Jansenism  and  the  Port-Royalists  ;  but  for  long  the 
gentle  piety  of  Fe'nelon  retained  the  respect  and 
admiration  of  Bossuet's  more  fiery  spirit.  Both 
these  great  men  gave  instruction  at  St  Cyr,  by 
the  desire  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  and  the  king. 
Time  must  indeed  have  passed  lightly  by  Ninon  ; 
for  onceagain,  at  the  age  of  eighty  years,  she  inspired 
a  young  abbe*,  named  Gedouin — a  distant  relative 
on  the  maternal  side — with  deep  fervent  admiration. 
Ninon  at  first  believed  that  he  was  jesting  with  her, 
and  rebuked  him  severely  ;  but  it  was  a  very  serious 
matter  on  his  part,  and  though  she  told  him  of  her 
fourscore  years,  he  declared  that  it  in  no  way 
altered  his  sentiments.  "  What  of  that  ? "  he  said  ; 
"wit  and  beauty  know  nothing  of  age,"  and  the 
Abbe*  Gedouin's  pleading,  which  was  not  in  vain, 
terminated  Ninon's  last  liaison  with  an  affectionate 
and  endearing  friendship.  When  he  was  rallied  on 
his  conquest,  the  abbe's  rejoinder  was  that — 

"  Ah,  mes  amis,  lorsqu'une  tonne 
A  contenu  d'excellent  vin, 
Elle  garde  un  parfum  divin 
Et  la  lie  en  est  toujours  bonne." 

Monsieur  de  Lauzun,  on  the  other  hand,  being 
now  over  sixty  years  old,  contracted  a  marriage 
with  an  English  girl  of  sixteen.  She  was  so  fear- 
fully thin,  that  the  Due  de  St  Simon,  who  was  one  of 
Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos'  cercle,  said  de  Lauzun 
might  as  well  have  wedded  all  the  bones  of  the  Holy 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  279 

Innocents  Cemetery,  where  the  skulls  and  bones 
were  piled  in  pyramids. 

St  Simon  was  a  delightful  conversationalist.  He 
was  the  son  of  the  old  favourite  of  Louis  XIII.  He 
could  be  very  caustic  with  his  anecdotes.  One  night 
he  greatly  amused  the  company  with  an  account  of  the 
marriage  of  the  son  of  the  Grand  Dauphin,  the  little 
Duke  of  Burgundy.  He  was  of  the  tender  age  when 
ordinary  and  everyday  little  boys  are  occasionally 
still  liable  to  chastisement  by  their  elders.  The 
duchess  to  be,  who  was  still  very  fond  of  her  doll, 
was  presented  on  the  occasion  by  the  Queen  of 
England  with  a  very  elegantly  trimmed  shift,  handed 
to  her  by  the  maids  of  honour  on  a  magnificently 
enamelled  tray.  In  this  garment  she  was  attired, 
while  her  youthful  husband,  seated  on  a  footstool, 
was  undressed  in  the  presence  of  the  king  and  of  all 
the  Court.  The  bride,  being  put  to  bed,  the  Due  of 
Burgundy  was  conducted  in  and  also  put  into  bed, 
beside  which  the  Grand  Dauphin  then  took  his  seat, 
while  Madame  de  Lude  took  her  place  beside  the 
young  duchess.  Then  sugar-plums  were  offered  to 
the  bride  and  bridegroom,  who  cracked  them  up  with 
the  greatest  enjoyment.  After  about  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  the  due  was  taken  out  of  bed  again,  a  pro- 
ceeding which  appeared  greatly  to  displease  him,  and 
he  was  led,  sulking  enough,  back  to  the  antechamber, 
where  the  Due  de  Berry,  some  two  years  his  junior, 
clapping  him  on  the  shoulder,  told  him  he  was  not 
a  bit  of  a  man.  "  If  it  had  been  me,"  he  added,  "  I 
should  have  refused  to  get  out  of  bed." 

The  king  imposed  silence  on  the  little  rascal's 


280  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

rebellious  counsel,  and  placed  the  bridegroom  back 
into  the  hands  of  his  tutors,  declaring  that  he  would 
not  permit  him  to  so  much  as  kiss  the  tips  of  his  wife's 
fingers,  for  the  next  five  years  to  come.  "  Then, 
grandpapa/1  demanded  the  little  brother,  "why 
have  you  let  them  be  married  ?  It  is  ridiculous/' 
It  was  all  certainly  something  like  it. 

After  that  the  child  was  placed  for  his  instruction 
in  the  care  of  the  Abbe*  de  Fe'nelon,  whose  rapid 
advancement  at  Court  had  been  attained  by  his 
lofty  character  and  talents. 

But  Louis  had  far  more  affection  for  his  illegiti- 
mate children  than  for  these,  and  aided  by  Madame 
de  Maintenon's  intrigues,  he  finally  succeeded  in 
securing  a  large  portion  of  the  heritage  of  la  Grande 
Mademoiselle  for  the  Due  du  Maine  and  the  Due  du 
Vendome ;  but  the  brave  spirit  of  heroes  and  con- 
querors he  could  not  endow  them  with,  for  all  his 
desire.  It  was  to  no  effect  that  he  confided  command 
to  them  of  his  troops  in  Holland.  The  Due  du  Maine 
speciallyundistinguished  himself.  Just  as  the  enemy 
was  escaping  scot-free,  he  found  he  was  hungry, 
and  asked  for  a  cup  of  bouillon  to  strengthen  him. 
11  Charge  !  Charge,  Monseigneur !"  urged  Villeroy's 
messenger,  coming  to  him  in  a  fever  of  excitement. 

"  Oh,  well,  patience,"  replied  the  warrior  ;  "my 
wing  is  not  in  order  yet." 

Finding  no  sort  of  response  to  his  repeated 
messages,  Villeroy  went  in  search  himself  of  the 
prince,  and  found  him  in  his  tent,  at  his  confessor's 
knees.  The  first  duty  of  a  good  Christian,  he  said, 
was  to  make  his  peace  at  such  times  with  Heaven. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  281 

So  the  religious  discipline  of  his  governess  and 
stepmother,  the  widow  Scarron  and  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  had  borne  fruit.  It  was  of  a  different 
flavour  from  the  prayer  of  the  brave  servant  of 
King  Charles  I. — Sir  Edmund  Verney — before 
Edgehill :  "  Lord,  Thou  knowest  how  busy  I  must 
be  this  day.  If  I  forget  Thee,  do  not  Thou  forget 
me."  And  there  was  no  battle  won  or  lost  that  day 
on  the  Dutch  frontier,  and  Louis,  when  they  brought 
to  Versailles  news  of  the  enemy's  safe  retreat,  was 
at  a  loss  to  understand  the  situation  ;  for  no  one 
cared,  or  dared,  to  tell  him  the  truth,  until  Lavienne, 
his  valet  de  chambre  in  chief,  in  the  days  of  Louis's 
amours,  hazarded  the  observation  that,  after  all, 
proverbs  could  speak  falsely,  and  that  "  Good  blood 
could  lie ; "  and  then  he  went  on  to  add  the  other 
truths  concerning  Monsieur  du  Maine.  In  the  face  of 
the  fulsome  praise  following  in  the  journals — which 
lied  as  only  journals  know  how — the  king  was  over- 
whelmed with  grief  and  chagrin  ;  and,  beside  himself, 
he  broke  his  cane  in  a  fit  of  anger  on  the  back  of  one 
of  an  unlucky  servant,  whom  he  happened  to  detect 
surreptitiously  eating  a  bit  of  marchpane.  This 
ebullition,  creating  the  consternation  of  all  the  Court, 
just  sitting  down  to  dinner,  brought  Madame  Louis 
Quatorze  and  Pere  la  Chaise  upon  the  scene. 
"  Parbleu,  mon  pere,"  said  the  king,  gradually 
-regaining  his  senses,  "  I  have  just  chastised  a 
wretched  creature  who  greatly  merited  it." 

"  Ah  !  "  gasped  tbe  confessor. 

"And    I    have   broken   my  cane   on  his  back. 
Have  I  offended  God  ?  " 


283  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  No,  my  son,  no,"  replied  the  holy  man.  "  It  is 
merely  that  the  excitement  may  be  harmful  to  your 
precious  health." 

Fortunately  the  cane,  being  of  slenderest  rose- 
wood, had  easily  snapped. 

Before  the  end  of  the  next  campaign,  the  re- 
doubtable Due  du  Maine  was  recalled :  d'Elbceuf 
hastened  to  say  to  him,  making  a  profound  bow, 
"  Have  the  goodness,  Monseigneur,  to  inform 
me  where  you  propose  entering  on  the  next 
campaign." 

The  duke  turned,  smiling,  and  extended  his  hand 
to  d'Elbceuf,  whose  ironical  tones  he  had  failed  to 
perceive. 

"Wherever  it  is,"  added  d'Elbceuf,  "I  should 
wish  to  be  there." 

"  Why  ?  "  demanded  the  duke. 

"  Because,"  replied  d'Elboeuf,  after  a  silence, 
"at  least  one's  life  would  be  safe." 

Monsieur  du  Maine  gave  a  jump,  as  if  he  had 
trodden  on  a  serpent,  and  went  away  without  reply- 
ing, not  being  better  furnished  with  wit  than  he  was 
with  valour. 

And  the  autumn  leaves  of  Ninon's  life  were 
ever  fast  falling  around  her.  In  her  Chateau  de 
Boulogne  Madame  de  la  Sabliere  passed  away,  and 
la  Fontaine,  finding  life  a  sad  thing  without  her, 
quickly  followed  her. 

The  Jesuit  conception  of  religious  faith,  great  as 
were  its  merits  as  originated  in  the  mind  of  Loyola, 
theoretically,  and  in  its  code  drawn  up  by  his  gifted 
successor,  Lainez,  had  displayed  its  imperfections 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  283 

in  its  practical  working,  as  time  passed.  This  was 
more  apparent  in  France  even  than  elsewhere  on 
the  Continent ;  since  there  papal  authority  was  tem- 
pered by  regulations  which  afforded  wider  scope  to 
thoughtful  and  devout  minds  ever  occupied  by  the 
problem  of  final  salvation  and  its  attainment. 

"Two  such  opposed  foes  encamp  them  still 
In  man  as  well  as  herbs,  grace  and  rude  will," 

says  Friar  Lawrence,  musing  over  his  "  osier  cage," 
of  weeds  and  flowers.  There  had  been  no  time  on 
Christian  record  that  the  question  had  not  exercised 
theologians,  and  when  it  had  burnt  into  fuller  flame, 
fanned  by  the  ardent  soul  of  Luther,  it  spread 
through  Europe  and  was  called  the  Reformation ; 
but  the  spirit  of  it  had  been  ever  present  in  the 
Church,  and  to  endeavour  to  stamp  out  the  Catholic 
faith  had,  in  Luther's  earlier  days  at  all  events, 
formed  no  part  of  his  desire.  Yet  scarcely  had  his 
doctrines  formulated,  than  the  fanaticism  and 
extravagance  of  the  ignorant  and  irresponsible 
seized  upon  them,  and  wrung  them  out  of  all  size 
and  proportion  to  fit  their  own  wild  lusts  and 
inclinations,  "stumbling  on  abuse,"  striving  to 
impose  their  levelling  and  socialistic  views,  and 
establish  a  community  of  goods,  and  all  else  in 
common — even  their  wives,  though  dispensing  with 
clothing  as  a  superfluity  and  a  vanity  displeasing 
in  Heaven's  sight.  So  Anabaptism  ran  riot  in 
Germany  under  John  of  Leyden  and  his  disciples  ; 
while  upon  its  heels  Calvin's  gloomy  and  hopeless 
tenets  kept  men's  minds  seething  in  doubt  and 


284  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

speculation  over  grace  and  free-will,  his  narrow 
creed  and  private  enmity  bringing  Servetus  to 
hideous  and  prolonged  torture  and  death  at  the 
stake,  for  heresy. 

Stirred  by  the  revolt  of  Protestantism  on  one 
side,  and  the  claims  of  Rome  on  the  other,  supported 
by  the  Jesuits,  speculation  gained  increased  activity 
within  the  pale  of  the  Catholic  Church,  animated 
further  by  the  writings  of  Jansenius,  Bishop  of 
Ypres,  whose  theories  on  grace  and  the  efficacy  of 
good  works  were  grounded  mainly  on  the  via  media, 
and  it  was  the  following  of  his  opinions  by  the 
illustrious  students  gathered  at  Port  Royal  which 
created  the  school  of  Jansenists  that  included  such 
names  as  Fe*nelon,  Pascal,  and  so  many  others, 
headed  by  the  Abb6  Arnauld,  whose  sister 
Ang61ique  was  the  Superior  of  the  convent  of 
Port  Royal,  and  whose  father,  the  learned  advocate, 
had  been  so  stern  an  opponent  to  the  Jesuits  as  to 
have  caused  their  expulsion  from  France  in  the 
reign  of  Henri  IV.  Readmitted  later,  they  found 
as  firm  an  opponent  in  his  son,  who,  when  still  quite 
young,  wrote  a  brilliant  treatise  against  the  danger 
of  Jesuit  casuistry. 

The  convent  of  Port  Royal  des  Champs  was 
situated  on  the  road  from  Versailles  to  Chevreuse, 
and  hard  by,  in  a  farmhouse  called  La  Grange, 
"  Messieurs  de  Port  Royal/' as  the  Jansenist  priests 
and  students  were  called,  made  their  home.  They 
had  for  their  friends  the  most  distinguished  men, 
scholars  and  poets  of  the  time;  Boileau,  Pascal,  Racine 
were  of  the  band.  The  place  itself  is  now  scarcely 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  285 

more  than  a  memory.  It  was  then,  wrote  Madame 
de  Sevigne",  "  Tout  propre  a  inspirer  le  dtsir  de 
faire  son  salut"  and  hither  came  many  a  high-born 
man  and  woman  of  the  world  to  find  rest  and  peace. 
Now  a  broken  tourelle  or  two,  the  dovecote  and 
a  solitary  Gothic  arch  reflecting  in  a  stagnant  pool, 
are  all  that  remain  in  the  sequestered  valley,  of  the 
famous  Port  Royal,  which  early  in  the  next  century 
was  destroyed  by  royal  decree,  when  its  glory  had 
departed,  following  the  foreordained  ruling  of  all 
mundane  achievement ;  and  the  extravagance  of 
fatconvulsionnaires  and  later  followers  of  Jansenism 
was  stamped  out  by  the  bull  "  Unigenitns"  against 
heresy. 

Arnauld's  heart  was  deposited  at  Port  Royal  at 
his  death,  with  the  remains  of  his  mother  and  sisters. 
Louis  XIV.,  as  ever  his  wont  had  been  to  genius 
and  intellect,  had  invited  him  "  to  employ  his  golden 
pen  in  defence  of  religion  ; "  but  that  was  before 
the  great  king  came  under  the  direction  of  Madame 
de  Maintenon  and  Pere  la  Chaise.  But  that  Madame 
and  her  Jesuit  confessor  would  long  continue  to 
regard  the  Port  Royalists  with  favour  was  not 
possible.  Intolerance  succeeded  to  patronage,  and 
Fdnelon  was  deported  to  Cambrai,  sent  afar  from 
his  friend,  Madame  Guyon,  whose  order  of  arrest 
and  incarceration  in  the  Chateau  de  Vincennes  was 
issued  very  shortly  after  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos' 
interview  with  Madame  Louis  Quatorze  in  her 
Versailles  sanctum. 

In  her  dismay,  Madame  Guyon  contrived  to  fly 
to  Ninon,  seeking  protection  ;  but  it  was  of  no  avail. 


286  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

Without  a  moment's  delay,  Ninon  drove  to 
Versailles,  and  sought  an  interview  with  Madame 
de  Maintenon  on  behalf  of  Madame  Guyon.  The 
interview  was  not  accorded.  Nanon — the  Nanon 
of  Scarron  days,  but  now  "  Mademoiselle  Balbien" — 
was  delegated  to  speak  with  her. — "  Mademoiselle 
Balbien,"  who  gave  Ninon  to  understand  that  she 
was  to  be  addressed  no  longer  as  "  tu  "  ("  thou  "),  but 
as  "vous"  ("you"),  that  the  question  of  Madame 
Guyon  could  not  even  be  entered  upon,  and  under 
threat  of  being  herself  again  lodged  in  the  Rdpenties 
she  was  bidden  to  depart. 

Ninon  was  at  first  amazed  at  this  strange  recep- 
tion and  insolent  behaviour  of  mistress  and  maid. 
But  she  was  not  left  long  in  perplexity,  since 
"Mademoiselle  Balbien"  permitted  the  truth  to 
escape  her  prim  lips,  that  Madame  de  Maintenon 
had  credited  Ninon  with  the  design  of  introducing 
d'Aubigne  into  the  boudoir  in  the  middle  of  that 
memorable  interview,  with  the  intention  of  disgrac- 
ing Madame  in  the  estimation  of  the  king.  That 
Ninon  was  not  made  of  the  stuff  for  this,  it  is 
almost  superfluous  to  say.  Any  sins  she  might 
have  to  answer  for,  did  not  include  the  hypocrisy 
with  which  Madame  de  Maintenon  had  clothed 
herself  about,  and  almost  equally  needless  is  it  to 
repeat  that  by  no  possible  means  the  concealed 
presence  of  the  king  could  have  been  known  by 
any  but  the  two  most  immediately  concerned.  It 
could  be  but  a  matter  of  their  dual  consciousness. 

For  six  years  Madame  Guyon  remained  in  prison. 
Monsieur  F^nelon's  Maximes  des  Saints  was  con- 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  287 

demned  by  the  Court  of  Rome,  and  the  bigotry 
and  hypocrisy  ruling  Versailles  swelled  daily. 

Moliere,  alas  !  was  no  more,  to  expose  the  perilous 
absurdities  and  lash  them  to  extinction ;  but  the 
comedy  of  La  Fausse  Prude,  produced  some  weeks 
later  at  the  Italiens,  was  a  prodigious  success.  The 
world  greatly  enjoyed  and  admired  the  fitting  of 
the  cap,  built  upon  the  framework  supplied  by  one 
who  had  befriended  and  sheltered  under  her  own 
roof  the  forlorn  young  orphan  girl,  Franchise 
d'Aubigne". 


CHAPTER    XXV 

The  Melancholy  King — The  Portents  of  the  Storm — The  Ambi- 
tion of  Madame  Louis  Quatorze — The  Farrier  of  Provence — 
The  Ghost  in  the  Wood — Ninon's  Objection — The  King's 
Conscience — A  Dreary  Court — Racine's  Slip  of  the  Tongue 
— The  Passing  of  a  Great  Poet,  and  a  Busy  Pen  Laid  Down. 

THE  disastrous  thrall  holding  Louis  XIV.  to 
Madame  de  Maintenon,  was  an  endless  theme  of 
wonder  and  speculation  among  his  subjects.  Very 
fewof  them  ascribed  it  to  pure  unadulterated  love  and 
affection  for  his  old  wife — for  she  was  his  elder  by 
three  years — while  Louis  himself  was  now  at  an  age 
when  the  enthusiasm  of  life  slows  into  some  weari- 
ness and  languor  as  it  recognises  the  emptiness  and 
futility  of  all  mundane  things.  There  were  times 
when  he  was  lost  in  brooding  thought,  and  he 
would  wander  about  his  splendid  galleries  and 
salons  and  magnificent  gardens,  absorbed,  if  his 
dull  aspect  expressed  the  inward  spirit,  in  melan- 
choly reflection.  The  glory  had  departed  of  his 
earlier  ruling,  leaving  the  nation  loaded  with  debt. 
The  price  had  to  be  paid  for  those  brilliant  victories  of 
long  ago,  and  accumulation  of  debt  on  the  many  later 
reverses  cried  for  settlement.  The  provinces  had 
been  deeply  impoverished  by  the  absenteeism  of  their 
overlords,  whose  presence  the  Grand  Monarque  had 
for  so  many  years  required  to  grace  Versailles, 
attired  in  their  silks  and  velvets,  sweeping  their 
plumed,  diamond-aigretted  hats  to  the  polished 

288 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  289 

floors,  bowing  and  crowding  to  gaze  at  the  sublime 
process  of  His  Majesty's  getting  up,  promenading 
with  the  great  ladies  among  the  fountains  and 
bosquets  of  Trianon,  spending  the  heaven-bestowed 
hours  in  the  sweetness  of  doing  nothing  but 
manipulate  their  rapier-hangers  and  snuff-boxes ; 
while  Jacques  Bonhomme,  away  down  in  Touraine 
and  Perigord  and  Berri,  and  where  you  will  in  the 
length  and  breadth  of  fair  France,  was  sweating  and 
starving  to  keep  those  high-born  gentlemen  supplied 
with  money  in  their  purses  for  the  card-tables,  and 
to  maintain  their  lackeys  and  gilded  coaches  in  the 
sumptuous  style  which  was  no  more  than  Louis 
required  of  the  vast  throng.  It  was  in  its  way  an 
unavoidable  exaction,  since  the  few  of  the  nobility 
who  remained  on  their  own  estates  had  done  so  at 
the  peril  of  incurring  the  severe  displeasure  of  the 
king,  the  Sun- King — Le  roi  le  vent — whose  centre 
was  Versailles. 

And  still  the  full  time  was  not  yet  when  all 
this  should  be  changed.  Even  for  Louis,  the 
absolute  reckoning  day  was  but  shadowing  in. 
" After  us  the  deluge":  that  prophetic  utterance 
was  spoken  long  after  Louis  was  borne  to  his  rest 
in  St  Denis,  but  when  the  records  of  his  life  tell 
of  those  long-brooding,  silent  pacings  amid  the 
grandeur  and  treasures  of  his  splendid  palace, 
comes  the  question  if  from  afar  off  there  did  not 
sound  the  murmur  of  the  flood  that  was  to  break 
some  hundred  years  hence,  if  in  some  dim  yet 
certain  way  the  cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's 
hand  was  not  apparent  to  his  introspective  gaze, 


290  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

for  as  yet  the  domestic  misfortunes  of  his  latest 
years  had  not  befallen,  death  had  not  robbed  him 
of  his  heir,  and  the  rest  dear  to  him  ;  but  discontent, 
not  unmingled  with  contempt,  seethed  round  the 
proud  King  of  France.  How  were  the  mighty 
fallen,  and  how  great  the  political  mistake  which 
indissolubly  linked  the  ambitious  woman,  clothed 
about  in  her  new-found  meretricious  garb  of 
piety,  with  his  great  responsible  destiny — Louis, 
Dieudonne  and  elect  ruler. 

Nor  did  it  stop  at  the  secret,  sufficiently  open 
and  acknowledged,  of  his  marriage  with  Scarron's 
widow.  The  fear  was  well  enough  founded  that 
she  was  moving  earth,  and  if  possible  all  heaven,  to 
be  Queen  of  France ;  but  righteousness  had  small 
part  in  the  endeavour,  and  trickery  and  chicanery 
failed  to  prevail  to  this  crowning  end  upon  the  king's 
consciousness  and  conviction.  Pride,  and  the  sense 
of  his  irrevocable  bondage,  mingled  with  the  poison 
of  the  hypocritical  devoutness  instilled  into  him 
by  his  wife  and  her  confessor,  kept  him  silently 
deferential  to  this  woman,  spoiled  by  prosperity; 
but  she  herself  says  that  all  her  endeavours  to 
amuse  him  or  bring  a  smile  to  his  lips,  failed.  He 
had — mildly  construing  the  homely  proverb — put  off 
from  shore  with  a  person — more  or  less  mentionable 
— and  he  was  bound  to  sail  to  land  with  her. 

The  diablerie  at  work  was  untiring,  and  had 
many  strings,  and  there  seem,  small,  if  any,  question 
that  to  the  genius  of  the  Marseilles  merchant's 
wife,  formerly  Madame  Arnoul,  the  curious  tale  of 
the  Farrier  of  Provence  is  due. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  291 

From  extreme  southward  of  France  came  this 
poor  man,  who  said  he  was  shoemaker  to  all  the 
horses  of  his  grace,  Monsieur  d'fepernon,  at  his 
country  mansion  near  Marseilles  —  to  speak  to 
the  king's  Majesty  upon  a  subject  concerning  him 
alone. 

The  major  of  the  guards  to  whom  he  explained 
his  wish,  told  him  such  an  interview  was  impos- 
sible. A  letter  of  audience  was  first  required,  and 
that  was  to  be  had  only  with  utmost  difficulty. 
Besides,  he  added,  the  king  did  not  receive  all  the 
world.  The  man  objected  that  he  was  not  all  the 
world.  " Quite  so,"  said  the  guard.  "By  whom 
are  you  sent  ?  " 

11  By  Heaven." 

"  Ah  !  " — and  all  the  bodyguard  went  into  fits  of 
laughter  at  this  reply.  The  man  stoutly  insisted, 
however,  that  he  had  most  important  matters  to 
disclose  to  "the  Master  of  '  Ves&lles,' "  as  he 
phrased  it.  At  this  point  of  the  conversation,  the 
Marshal  de  Torcy,  Colbert's  nephew,  happened  to 
come  by.  Overhearing  what  had  passed,  he  directed 
that  this  emissary  of  Heaven  should  be  conducted 
to  the  ministers,  just  then  sitting  in  council.  They, 
impressed  with  the  honest  and  earnest  air  of  the 
farrier,  informed  the  king  of  the  affair.  Listening 
with  grave  attention  to  their  representation,  Louis 
commanded  the  man  to  be  brought  before  him. 
Alone  with  the  king,  the  farrier  unfolded  his  tale. 
It  was  fantastic  enough.  He  was  returning,  he 
said,  from  the  duke's  stables,  where  he  had  been 
shoeing  some  of  the  horses — to  his  own  home,  in  a 


292  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

hamlet  situated  not  far  off,  and  was  passing  through 
a  wood.  It  was  night,  and  quite  dark  ;  but  suddenly 
he  found  himself  enfolded  in  a  brilliant  light,  and  in 
the  midst  of  it  stood  a  tall  woman,  right  in  his  path. 
She  addressed  him  by  his  name,  and  bade  him 
repair  immediately  and  without  an  instant  of  delay 
to  Versailles,  where  he  was  to  tell  the  king  that  he 
had  seen  the  spirit  of  the  dead  queen,  his  wife,  and 
that  she,  the  ghost  of  Maria  Theresa,  commanded 
him  in  the  name  of  heaven,  to  make  public  the 
marriage  he  had  contracted,  which  hitherto  he  had 
kept  secret. 

The  king  objected  that  the  man  had  probably 
been  the  victim  of  hallucination.  "  I  thought  so 
too  at  first,"  replied  the  farrier,  "  and  I  sat  down 
under  an  elm-tree  to  collect  myself,  believing  I  had 
been  dreaming ;  but  two  days  afterwards,  as  I  was 
passing  the  same  spot,  I  again  saw  the  phantom, 
who  threatened  all  sorts  of  terrible  misfortunes  to 
me  and  mine  if  I  did  not  immediately  do  what  it 
had  directed." 

Then  the  king  had  another  doubt ;  and  asked 
him  whether  he  was  not  trying  to  impose  upon  him, 
and  had  been  paid  to  carry  out  the  affair. 

The  man  replied  that  in  order  for  His  Majesty 
to  be  convinced  that  he  was  no  impostor,  he  should 
wish  him  to  reply  to  one  question  he  had  to  ask. 
"  Have  you,"  he  went  on,  when  the  king  willingly 
consented  to  this,  "have  you  ever  mentioned  to 
living  soul  a  syllable  about  the  midnight  visit 
the  late  queen-mother  paid  you  in  the  Chateau  de 
Ribeauvill£  years  ago  ? " 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  293 

"  No,"  said  Louis,  with  paling  lips,  "I  never 
confided  it  to  anyone." 

"Very  well;  the  ghost  in  the  forest  bade  me 
remind  you  of  that  visit,  if  you  expressed  any  doubt 
of  my  good  faith  ;  and,"  added  the  man,  as  the  king 
said  it  was  very  strange,  "  before  disappearing,  the 
tall  white  woman  uttered  these  words — '  He  must 
obey  me  now,  as  he  then  obeyed  his  mother. " 

The  king,  in  an  access  of  dismay  and  perplexity, 
sent  for  the  Due  de  Duras,  and  related  to  him  in 
confidence  what  had  passed  during  the  interview 
with  the  peasant.  The  duke,  who  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Ninon,  told  her  the  wondrous  tale. 

It  took  no  time  for  her  to  arrive  at  the  con- 
clusion that  Madame  Louis  Ouatorze  and  her 
faithful  card-divining  friend  and  fortune-teller, 
Madame  Arnoul,  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  business, 
and  under  promise  on  the  duke's  part  of  inviolable 
secrecy,  she  told  him  of  the  adventure  in  the 
Vosges  and  the  very  conspicuous  part  she  had 
played  in  it,  actuated  by  her  enmity  towards  the 
de  Montespan.  The  farrier,  she  did  not  doubt,  was 
honest  enough ;  but,  simple  and  credulous,  he  had 
been  made  the  tool  of  the  two  women — an  easy 
prey  to  Madame  Arnoul,  who,  living  at  Marseilles, 
had  seen  him,  and  reckoned  him  up  as  suitable  for 
her  design. 

The  duke  was  of  opinion  that  there  was  no  doubt 
Ninon's  solution  of  the  mystery  was  correct,  and 
he  added  that,  this  being  the  case,  it  was  her  duty  to 
inform  the  king  of  it — "  For  who  knows,"  said  Duras, 
"that  he  may  not  be  weak  enough  to  obey  the 


296  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

threatened,  unless  he  humbled  himself,  as  he  did  to 
the  dust,  to  follow  the  instruction  of  his  Jesuit 
confessor.  Yet  Madame  de  Maintenon  herself 
laments  that  "she  could  never  make  him  under- 
stand that  humility  was  a  Christian  virtue."  A  qui 
lafaute?  His  most  intimate  exemplar  of  the 
attribute  was  one  more  outwardly  shining  than 
profound.  There  have  been  apologists  for  Madame 
de  Maintenon,  and  for  Pere  la  Chaise,  and  for 
these  promoters  of  the  Nantes  Revocation  they 
do  not  seem  to  be  superfluous,  these  "Pieces 
Justificative  s"  of  the gouvernante  of  the  Montespan's 
children,  and  later  of  their  father.  The  Due  de  St 
Simon,  among  many  other  writers,  makes  less  than 
no  extenuation ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  de- 
scribes Pere  la  Chaise  as  a  strong  Jesuit,  yet  withal 
neither  fanatical  nor  fawning — and  yet  more  power- 
fully still  in  his  favour,  he  says  that  although  he 
advised  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  he 
was  no  party  to  the  merciless  persecution  by  which 
it  was  followed. 

Forgetting,  or  rather  ignoring,  his  own  youth, 
Louis  imposed  rigorous  discipline  upon  all  about 
him.  The  merest  peccadillo  incurred  possibilities 
of  imprisonment,  and  only  absolute  impeccability 
being  tolerated,  pharisaism  and  hypocrisy  were 
rampant.  The  royal  children  and  grandchildren 
were  required,  on  pain  of  utter  disgrace,  to  make 
weekly  confession,  and  no  choice  of  a  spiritual 
director  was  permitted  the  Grand  Dauphin.  To 
Pere  la  Chaise,  and  to  him  alone,  was  committed  the 
conscience  of  the  Jansenist  Fenelon's  pupil ;  and  at 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  297 

the  great  annual  festivals  of  the  Church,  all  the 
members  of  the  royal  family  were  required  to  com- 
municate publicly.  The  Duchess  of  Burgundy  was 
sorely  rebuked  for  a  breach  of  this  regulation. 

The  consideration  and  deference  often  only 
meagrely  accorded  to  Queen  Maria  The'resa,  was 
never  lacking  to  Louis's  morganatic  wife.  One  day, 
at  the  camp  of  Compiegne,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
mock  siege,  the  king  stood  hat  in  hand,  for  more 
than  an  hour  beside  her  carriage  door,  explaining 
to  her  the  manoeuvres  of  the  troops.  Any  reference 
not  entirely  and  absolutely  complimentary  to 
Madame  Louis  Quatorze,  or  to  anything  connected 
with  her  past  life,  would  rouse  him  to  violent  anger. 
It  would  have  seemed  that  the  two  went  in  mortal 
fear  of  each  other. 

Such  a  slip  of  the  tongue  helped  to  bring 
about  the  disgrace  of  Racine.  He  had  long  been 
admitted  on  an  intimate  friendly  footing  with  the 
royal  family,  and  having  in  mind  a  wish  to  write 
a  history  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  he  was 
in  the  habit  of  bringing  his  notes  on  the  pro- 
jected work  to  read  to  Madame  de  Maintenon. 
His  honest  and  veracious  nature  would  have 
been  untrue  to  itself  if  he  had  failed  to  anim- 
advert on  the  defectiveness  of  the  system  of 
administration  in  regard  to  the  people,  burdened 
and  suffering  as  they  were  under  heavy  taxation, 
resulting  from  prodigality  in  high  places,  and  the 
enormous  expenses  of  the  wars,  which,  glorious  as 
they  were,  spelt  ruin  for  the  general  population. 
The  sympathy  and  pity  of  Madame  de  Maintenon 


296  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

threatened,  unless  he  humbled  himself,  as  he  did  to 
the  dust,  to  follow  the  instruction  of  his  Jesuit 
confessor.  Yet  Madame  de  Maintenon  herself 
laments  that  "she  could  never  make  him  under- 
stand that  humility  was  a  Christian  virtue."  A  qui 
lafaute?  His  most  intimate  exemplar  of  the 
attribute  was  one  more  outwardly  shining  than 
profound.  There  have  been  apologists  for  Madame 
de  Maintenon,  and  for  Pere  la  Chaise,  and  for 
these  promoters  of  the  Nantes  Revocation  they 
do  not  seem  to  be  superfluous,  these  "Pieces 
Justificative  s"  of  \hegouvernante  of  the  Montespan's 
children,  and  later  of  their  father.  The  Due  de  St 
Simon,  among  many  other  writers,  makes  less  than 
no  extenuation ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  de- 
scribes Pere  la  Chaise  as  a  strong  Jesuit,  yet  withal 
neither  fanatical  nor  fawning — and  yet  more  power- 
fully still  in  his  favour,  he  says  that  although  he 
advised  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  he 
was  no  party  to  the  merciless  persecution  by  which 
it  was  followed. 

Forgetting,  or  rather  ignoring,  his  own  youth, 
Louis  imposed  rigorous  discipline  upon  all  about 
him.  The  merest  peccadillo  incurred  possibilities 
of  imprisonment,  and  only  absolute  impeccability 
being  tolerated,  pharisaism  and  hypocrisy  were 
rampant.  The  royal  children  and  grandchildren 
were  required,  on  pain  of  utter  disgrace,  to  make 
weekly  confession,  and  no  choice  of  a  spiritual 
director  was  permitted  the  Grand  Dauphin.  To 
Pere  la  Chaise,  and  to  him  alone,  was  committed  the 
conscience  of  the  Jansenist  Fenelon's  pupil ;  and  at 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  297 

the  great  annual  festivals  of  the  Church,  all  the 
members  of  the  royal  family  were  required  to  com- 
municate publicly.  The  Duchess  of  Burgundy  \vas 
sorely  rebuked  for  a  breach  of  this  regulation. 

The  consideration  and  deference  often  only 
meagrely  accorded  to  Queen  Maria  Theresa,  was 
never  lacking  to  Louis's  morganatic  wife.  One  day, 
at  the  camp  of  Compiegne,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
mock  siege,  the  king  stood  hat  in  hand,  for  more 
than  an  hour  beside  her  carriage  door,  explaining 
to  her  the  manoeuvres  of  the  troops.  Any  reference 
not  entirely  and  absolutely  complimentary  to 
Madame  Louis  Quatorze,  or  to  anything  connected 
with  her  past  life,  would  rouse  him  to  violent  anger. 
It  would  have  seemed  that  the  two  went  in  mortal 
fear  of  each  other. 

Such  a  slip  of  the  tongue  helped  to  bring 
about  the  disgrace  of  Racine.  He  had  long  been 
admitted  on  an  intimate  friendly  footing  with  the 
royal  family,  and  having  in  mind  a  wish  to  write 
a  history  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  he  was 
in  the  habit  of  bringing  his  notes  on  the  pro- 
jected work  to  read  to  Madame  de  Maintenon. 
His  honest  and  veracious  nature  would  have 
been  untrue  to  itself  if  he  had  failed  to  anim- 
advert on  the  defectiveness  of  the  system  of 
administration  in  regard  to  the  people,  burdened 
and  suffering  as  they  were  under  heavy  taxation, 
resulting  from  prodigality  in  high  places,  and  the 
enormous  expenses  of  the  wars,  which,  glorious  as 
they  were,  spelt  ruin  for  the  general  population. 
The  sympathy  and  pity  of  Madame  de  Maintenon 


298  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

/ 

were  genuinely  and  deeply  stirred  by  the  eloquent 
word-picture  the  poet  had  drawn  of  this ;  and  she 
suggested  that  he  should  draw  up  a  memoir  of  what 
he  thought  could  be  done  for  alleviating  the  wide- 
spread misery  and  distress.  Upon  this  memoir 
Racine  fell  to  work,  and  when  completed,  he  first  sub- 
mitted it  for  Madame' s  perusal;  but,  unfortunately, 
Louis  entering  at  the  moment,  glanced  his  eye  over 
the  manuscript,  and  his  wrath  kindled.  "As 
Monsieur  Racine  could  make  excellent  verses,  he 
fancied  that  he  knew  everything,"  he  said.  "  Not 
content  with  being  a  great  poet,  he  must  needs 
imagine  he  could  be  a  minister  of  State,"  and  wrath- 
fully  frowning,  the  king  went  out.  And  in  addition 
to  this  offence,  Racine  had  stumbled  on  the  almost 
more  heinous  crime  of  stirring  up  the  memory 
of  Scarron.  Louis,  in  course  of  discussion  with 
Racine  on  the  cause  of  the  decadence  of  comedy,  or, 
rather,  the  diminution  of  the  favour  with  which  it 
had  come  to  be  regarded,  expressed  wonder  that 
this  should  be  the  case. 

"Sire,"  said  Racine,  "there  are  several  causes. 
Since  Moliere's  death,  no  comedy-writer  seems, 
if  he  exists,  to  have  dared  to  enter  his  field, 
and  the  actors  have  no  material.  One  cannot 
always  play  Moliere ;  and  lacking  other  plays,  they 
find  refuge  in  the  detestable  pieces  of  Scarron, 
and—" 

But  Racine  never  finished  that  comment.  The 
words  froze  on  his  lips,  and  silenced  by  the  scarlet 
flush  on  Madame  de  Maintenon's  face,  and  the  un- 
controllable trembling  of  the  king,  as  if  some  reptile 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  299 

had  stung  him,  Racine,  recognising  his  blunder, 
stammered  out  some  words  which  only  made  things 
worse.  The  whilom  wife  of  the  criticised  dead 
play-writer  cast  furious  glances  at  the  tragic  poet, 
while  Louis  said,  in  tones  seething  with  anger — 
"  I  have  recently  seen  certain  scribbled  comments 
of  yours,  Monsieur,  in  which  you  make  an  attempt 
to  account  for  the  misery  suffered  by  the  people 
during  my  rule.  Poets  are  generally  wretched 
statesmen,  and,moreover,wedo  not  permit  criticism, 
direct  or  indirect  upon  our  authority.  Ah,"  he 
added,  when  again  Racine  strove  to  defend  himself, 
"  no  excuses.  Remain  at  home  for  the  future  ;  and 
direct  the  course  of  your  studies  into  other 
channels." 

So  Racine  received  his  dismissal  from  Versailles, 
and  soon  after,  taking  his  disgrace  to  heart,  the 
melancholy,  long  stolen  over  him  from  ill  health, 
increased,  and  aggravated  the  cruel  disease  to  which 
he  succumbed  after  an  operation  conducted  by  the 
unskilful  physician  who  attended  him.  The  king's 
heart  softened  towards  him  during  those  last  days, 
and  he  was  constantly  sending  messengers  to  inquire 
after  him.  Racine  was  interred  in  the  cemetery 
of  the  place  to  which  his  heart  had  so  warmly 
attached  itself— Port  Royal ;  but  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  monastery  and  the  Grange,  some  twelve 
years  later,  his  remains  were  transferred  to  Paris, 
and  laid  in  the  church  of  St  fetienne  du  Mont, 
beside  those  of  Pascal ;  and  Louis  bestowed  a 
pension  of  2000  livres  on  his  widow,  and  a  reversion 
of  it  to  her  children,  till  the  death  of  the  last  of  them. 


300  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

In  the  death  of  Madame  de  SeVigne,  Ninon 
lost  another  friend.  The  troops  of  enthusiastic 
admirers  of  this  most  delightful  woman  and  letter- 
writer  would  render  further  endeavour  in  the  way 
of  eulogy  trite  and  superfluous.  To  know  her  in 
life  must  have  been  to  experience  an  extraordinary 
satisfaction  ;  but  the  content  is  left  to  know  her 
through  that  flow  of  correspondence — the  volumin- 
ous letters  touching  upon  every  conceivable  topic 
of  contemporary  interest.  From  descriptions  of 
Court  life  and  its  glitter  and  splendour,  to  the 
hideous  details  recorded  of  the  prisoner  Brinvilliers, 
or  the  terrible  tragedy  of  the  Brittany  gentleman  in 
the  ballroom,  or  the  skilful  gamester,  Dangeau,  or 
Picard,  the  Paris  footman  who  wouldn't  make  hay. 
"He  was  not  engaged,"  he  said,  ''for  such  work. 
It  was  none  of  his  business — the  silly  fellow.  If 
you  see  him,  don't  welcome  him  ;  don't  protect  him  ; 
and  don't  blame  me.  Only  look  upon  him  as  of  all 
the  servants  in  the  world  the  least  addicted  to  hay- 
making." 

"  It  is  the  same  with  her,"  says  one  English  com- 
mentator. "  From  the  first  letter  quoted,  to  the  last ;  from 
the  proud  and  merry  boasting  of  the  young  mother  with 
a  boy,  to  the  candid  shudder  about  the  approach  of  old 
age,  and  the  refusal  of  Death  to  grant  a  moment  to  the 
dying  statesman  Louvois — '  No,  not  a  single  moment.' 
She  loved  nature  and  truth  without  misgiving,  and  nature 
and  truth  loved  her  in  return,  and  have  crowned  her  with 
glory  and  honour."1 

1  Leigh  Hunt. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

Leaving  the  Old  Home— "  Wrinkles  "—Young  Years  and  Old 
Friends— "A  Bad  Cook  and  a  Little  Bit  of  Hot  Coal"— 
Voltaire — Irene — Making  a  Library — "Adieu,  Mes  Amis" 
—The  Man  in  Black. 

THE  dawn  of  the  new  century  did  not  find  Made- 
moiselle de  L'Enclos  in  the  old  home  of  the  ruedes 
Tournelles.  One  by  one  the  relentless  scythe  of 
Death  had  cut  down  all  the  illustrious  men  and 
women  of  Ninon's  time.  The  cercle  had  narrowed, 
the  music  and  wit  and  joyousness  the  walls  of  that 
salon  had  so  long  echoed  with,  were  silent.  If 
Ninon  touched  her  lute  now,  it  could  but  stir 
regret  and  sadness  for  the  void.  At  last,  she  tells, 
her  beauty  had  faded,  leaving  no  traces  of  it ;  yet 
much  of  the  old  animation,  and  even  not  a  little  of 
the  gaiete  du  occur ^  were  with  her  still.  The  empty 
salon,  and  the  "yellow  chamber"  and  the  Place 
Royale  itself,  once  echoing  with  the  footsteps  of  her 
best  friends,  must  have  only  deepened  her  regrets. 
Of  all  the  friends  left  her  in  Paris,  there  were  but 
two  as  old,  one  indeed  older  than  herself — Made- 
moiselle de  Scuderi.  The  other  lady,  Madame  de 
Sandwich,  somewhere  of  the  same  age,  ever  grande 
dame^  sweet  and  amiable,  and  coquette  to  the  last, 
in  the  beautiful  old  point  de  Venise  and  paduasoy 
silks  she  adorned  herself  with. 

Both  these  ladies  occupied  apartments  in  the 

301 


302  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

faubourg  St  Germain,  and,  desiring  to  be  nearer 
to  them,  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos  disposed  of  her 
house  in  the  rue  des  Tournelles,  and  took  up  her 
residence  upon  the  quay,  in  a  house  facing  the 
Tuileries.  The  trio,  enjoying  their  old  terms  of 
friendship,  interchanged  visits,  and  dined  together, 
and  chatted,  sometimes  sighing  in  unison  over  the 
irrevocable  delights  of  the  past.  Mademoiselle  de 
Scuderi  best  preserved  her  cheery  outlook  upon 
the  world ;  but,  to  be  sure,  as  Ninon  says,  never 
having  been  beautiful,  she  had  had  the  least  to  lose  ; 
for  age  could  not  rob  her  of  her  mental  charms 
and  delightful  wit  and  fancy.  "  Time  is  a  coward," 
she  said  one  day ;  "  he  only  flings  his  wrinkles,  as 
the  Parthians  flung  their  arrows,  as  they  flew  by." 

One  day,  as  the  three  were  together,  the 
message  of  the  gentle  lady's  recall  came ;  and  they 
laid  her  on  a  couch,  and  sent  for  the  medical  aid 
which  was  not  likely  to  avail  much  for  the  ninety- 
four  years.  "  Dry  your  tears,"  she  murmured  on 
the  last  breath.  "  Soon  it  will  be  your  turn,  and  in 
a  better  world  we  shall  find  again  our  young  years, 
and  our  old  friends." 

Yet  another  pleasant  acquaintance  shared  those 
twilight  days  for  Mademoiselle  de  L'Enclos,  never 
weary  of  kindly  interest  and  well-doing  where  she 
could  bestow  it.  Fortunately  for  posterity,  Ninon 
was  afflicted  with  an  atrociously  bad  cook,  and  she 
was  often  obliged  to  go  into  her  kitchen  and 
attend  personally  to  the  sauces  and  the  r6tis>  and 
the  rest.  One  day  she  was  busily  engaged  in 
putting  together  a  partridge  pasty  for  the  enter- 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  303 

tainment  of  her  two  friends,  who  were  coming  to 
dejeuner  with  her. 

Suddenly  the  kitchen  door  opened,  and  a  little 
boy  of  some  seven  to  eight  years  old  entered,  with 
intelligent  eyes,  and  a  bright  smile  on  his  clean-cut 
features.  Taking  off  his  cap,  he  said  in  the  politest 
of  tones — "  Will  you  please  give  me  a  few  cinders, 
Madame,  since  your  fire  is  alight?  Our  servant 
upstairs  there  has  let  our  fire  go  out,  and  papa 
forbids  me  to  go  to  school  until  I  have  eaten  my 
soup." 

Ninon  wondered  who  this  little  son  of  a  most 
wise  papa  might  be.  He  was  a  small  child  for 
going  to  college,  as  he  told  her  on  further  question, 
was  that  of  the  Jesuit  College  of  Clermont.  Then, 
putting  facts  together,  she  had  scarcely  need  to  ask 
his  name  ;  though  on  questioning  him  further  still, 
he  told  her  it  was  Frangois  Marie  Arouet. 

"  The  son  of  the  treasurer  Arouet,  of  the  Court 
of  Accounts — and  you  live  on  the  floor  above  mine, 
do  you  not  ?  " 

"That  is  so,  Madame,"  nodded  the  boy,  repeat- 
ing his  request,  for  he  was  in  fear  of  the  pro- 
fessor's wrath  if  he  should  be  late. 

"But  you  have  nothing  to  put  your  fire  in," 
said  Ninon. 

"Ah!  how  stupid  of  me,"  said  the  child,  as 
he  stooped  down,  and  gathered  a  handful  of  the 
cold  ashes.  "Please  put  the  hot  coals  on  this/' 
he  went  on,  holding  out  the  cinder-shielded  palms. 

So  that  was  the  little  lad  of  whom  her  friend, 
the  Abbe*  de  Chdteauneuf  had  spoken  as  the  un- 


304  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

usually  intelligent  child  of  nobly  born,  but  poor 
parents,  who  were  great  friends  of  his.  "  Bravo  !  " 
Ninon  had  said  to  him,  as  he  departed  with 
the  fire  in  his  hands,  "  you  will  be  a  clever  man 
one  of  these  days," — and  the  sparks  of  that  fire 
kindled  to  a  flame  of  celebrity  which  is  not  likely 
to  die  out  while  the  French  language  or  any 
modern  tongue  finds  expression. 

"You  will  stifle  me  with  roses,"  said  he,  when, 
on  the  representation  of  his  Irene  in  the  winter- 
time, seventy-eight  years  later,  the  acclaiming 
crowds  did  him  homage.  The  excitement  was 
too  great  for  him,  and  in  the  following  May  he 
died.  A  long  life  full  of  literary  activity  and  of 
extremes  of  malice  and  generosity,  stirred  by  the 
environment  of  the  ferment  of  bigotry  and  philo- 
sophy seething  in  the  society  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Very  early  in  his  career  the  young  pupil 
of  Clermont,  taking  his  family  name  of  Voltaire, 
showed  signs  of  being  no  model  Jesuit.  For  the 
rest,  it  needs  to  recall  only  the  memory  of  Ninon's 
youthful  protege  by  his  fatherly  care  of  the 
grand-niece  of  Corneille,  when  he  heard  she  was 
in  dire  need,  or  his  defence  of  the  unhappy  Cal- 
vinist  Galas,  accused  of  the  murder  of  his  son, 
prompted  by  religious  conviction,  and  judicially 
murdered  by  being  broken  on  the  wheel.  In  the 
face  of  this  terrible  injustice,  Voltaire  never  rested 
till  he  had  obtained  such  reparation  for  Galas* 
afflicted  family  as  money  could  bestow,  from  the 
public  treasury  of  Toulouse,  through  the  influence 
of  the  Due  de  Choiseul. 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  305 

The  acquaintance  begun  in  Ninon's  kitchen 
continued  on  a  very  pleasant  footing,  and  in  her 
will  she  bequeathed  him  two  thousand  francs  with 
which  to  begin  forming  himself  a  library. 

And  so,  in  serenity  and  calm  enjoyment  of 
the  society  of  the  few  friends  time  had  left  her  of 
the  old  years,  and  of  those  the  present  had  brought 
her,  and  in  acts  of  generous  charity  among  her 
poorer  neighbours  and  to  those  who  should  live 
after,  Ninon  de  L'Enclos  passed  away.  "  It  is 
almost  sweet  to  die,"  she  said,  re-echoing  the 
sentiment  of  those  dear  to  her  who  had  gone 
before,  "  for  there  in  the  other  world  we  shall 
meet  again  th^se  we  have  loved." 

And  watching  by  her  couch,  they  heard  her 
murmur — "  Adieu,  my  friends,  adieu,"  and  the 
faint  breath  ceased. 

"  Qu'un  vain  espoir  ne  vienne  pas  s'offrir 
Que  puisse  ebranler  mon  courage, 
Je  suis  en  age  de  mourir, 
Que-ferais-je  davantage ! " 

So,  in  his  own  poetic  fancy,  St  Evrdmond 
seemed  to  hear  her  say ;  for  heart  and  soul  he 
knew  her,  and  understood  her.  It  was  in  one  of 
her  letters  to  him,  towards  the  close  of  her  life, 
that  she  expresses  regret  for  what  it  had  pleased 
her  to  designate  her  "  philosophy."  "  Had  anyone 
told  me  in  those  young  days  of  mine  I  should  live 
such  a  life,  I  should  have  hanged  myself  sooner/' 
she  writes. 

One   distinguished   biographer,   prefacing   her 

u 


306  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

letters  to  the  Marquis  de  Sevigne,  testifies  to  the 
consideration  in  which  she  was  regarded  by  the 
personages  of  high  merit  and  rank,  who  held  them- 
selves honoured  to  be  admitted  to  her  intimacy 
and  friendship. 

And  the  same  biographer  goes  on  to  tell  of  the 
wonderful  tale  of  such  sort  as  is  apt  to  cling  to 
persons  of  celebrity,  or  more  or  less  apart  from  the 
rank  and  file  of  people — the  tale  of  the  "NoctambuU" 
Ninon's  nocturnal  visitant,  the  little  "Man  in 
Black  " ;  but  this  is  confirmed  and  best  told  in  the 
vivid  description  of  his  last  visit,  as  it  is  handed 
down  to  us — 

"  PARIS,  gth  April  1701. 

"  Ah  !  my  friend,  what  a  terrible  fright  I  have  had ! 
Truly  I  am  not  recovered  from  it  yet,  and  my  limbs  still 
tremble  at  the  thought  of  it.  Oh,  these  cruel  things  that 
return  from  the  past  at  intervals,  to  stare  you  in  the  face, 
and  poison  the  tranquillity  of  the  present ! 

"  I  have  seen  my  Man  in  Black  !  Do  you  understand  ? 
My  Man  in  Black  of  the  Louvre  ball,  the  man  with  the 
red  tablets,  and  the  dozen  bottles ;  the  man  who  appeared 
to  me  seventy  years  ago.  Or,  rather,  no,  it  was  not  he, 
since  I  am  living  still.  But  great  Heaven!  what  a  resem- 
blance !  He  wore,  as  the  first  did,  a  black  velvet  coat,  and 
breeches,  carried  an  ebony  cane,  and  had  the  great  black 
moustache.  Oh,  I  was  ready  to  faint  with  terror.  You  may 
think  me  crazed,  I  daresay,  but  it  is  no  laughing  matter. 
Wait  while  I  get  my  wits  together  to  tell  you  properly. 

"  Madeleine  de  Scuderi,  as  you  know,  was  taken  ill  at 
my  house.  When  a  woman  is  ninety-four  years  of  age, 
there  is  no  great  chance  of  her  getting  better.  Neverthe- 
less, Madame  de  Sandwich  took  a  coach,  and  drove  at 
full  speed  to  a  quack  doctor,  who  is  very  fashionable,  and 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  307 

who  is  said  to  have  performed  many  wonderful  cures. 
Presently  she  returned  with  this  man.  I  looked  up,  to 
drop  back  into  my  chair,  crying  in  amazement :  '  It  is 
he ! — it  is  the  devil !  Oh,  Heaven  ! — Heaven  !  protect 
me!' 

"  He  turned  to  the  countess. 

" '  What  is  the  matter  with  her?  Is  it  your  invalid  ? ' 
he  inquired. 

" '  Mercy  ! '  I  cried,  casting  myself  on  my  knees,  *  I 
signed  on  your  tablets,  certainly ;  but  I  did  not  under- 
stand that  I  was  selling  my  soul.' 

" '  Ah  !  Ah  ! '  said  he, '  you  should  be  Mademoiselle  de 
L'Enclos?' 

"'  Yes,'  murmured  I,  in  half-suffocated  tones. 

"  '  You  regret  having  given  your  signature  ?  ' 

"'Alas!' 

"'  Calm  yourself;  I  am  not  the  devil  I  seem  to  be ;  and 
we  will  come  to  an  understanding.' 

"  He  approached  the  couch  of  the  sick  woman ;  but 
during  what  had  passed,  Madeleine  had  breathed  her 
last. 

"'I  should  not  have  saved  her,'  said  the  Man  in 
Black.  *  Let  us  go  into  another  room,'  he  added,  turning 
to  me  ;  *  we  will  settle  our  little  affair.' 

"'Oh,  dearest  Countess,  I  implore  you  do  not  forsake 
me ! '  I  cried,  lifting  my  trembling  hands  to  Madame  de 
Sandwich. 

"  Excuse  me,  what  I  have  to  say  must  not  be  heard 
by  anyone  but  yourself,  Mademoiselle ;  for  in  that  case, 
it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  arrange  the  bargain,' 
said  the  Man  in  Black. 

"  I  was  frozen  with  fear,  and  I  could  not  put  faith  in 
his  assurances.  Suddenly  remembering  that  the  night 
before,  I  had  received  from  my  confessor  a  reliquary 
containing  a  bit  of  the  true  cross,  I  went  for  it  to  my 
cabinet,  and  slipped  it  carefully  into  my  bosom.  *  Be  it 
so,  sir,'  I  said  to  him.  '  Come,  I  am  ready  to  listen  to  you.' 
Be  just  to  me,  my  friend.  You  have  never  known  me  to 


308  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

be  a  coward.  I  retain  all  my  faculties ;  very  well,  I 
swear  to  you  that  to  be  there,  alone  with  such  a  com- 
panion, I  had  to  summon  all  my  powers  of  body  and 
soul.  After  carefully  closing  the  door,  the  Man  in  Black 
said  to  me  :  *  Mademoiselle,  it  is  the  work  of  an  honest 
man  I  am  about  to  accomplish.  I  do  but  ask  of  you  to 
be  secret  upon  the  disclosure  I  am  about  to  make  to  you, 
and  I  believe  you  to  be  too  entirely  a  woman  of  honour 
to  do  harm  to  a  person  whose  sole  desire  is  to  make 
things  agreeable  to  you.' 

"  This  preamble  was  sufficiently  reassuring  ;  but  my 
horror  of  him  was  hardly  less  intense,  and  I  kept  the  holy 
relic  close  pressed  against  my  bosom,  to  ward  off  the  in- 
fluences of  the  spirit  of  evil.  The  Man  in  Black  drew  for- 
ward a  chair  for  me,  and  seated  himself  on  a  stool  beside  me. 

"'  I  am  not  the  devil,  Mademoiselle,"  he  continued.  '  I 
am  not  even  the  same  who  once  had  the  honour  of  paying 
you  a  visit/ 

"  I  trembled,  but  looked  at  him  with  a  little  less  terror. 

"  '  What,  sir,  you  are  not — ' 

" '  No,'  said  he,  without  permitting  me  to  finish  my 
sentence, '  it  was  my  father.' 

"'  Your  father?' 

"'  Yes,  a  Portuguese  Jew,  who  profoundly  studied  the 
art  of  healing.  I  bear  him  a  very  close  resemblance, 
Mademoiselle.' 

"'It  is  terrible,  sir.' 

" '  All  the  more  that  I  have  been  careful  to  wear  the 
same  clothes.  The  resemblance  is  my  fortune.  Countless 
people  have  been  deceived  as  you  have  been;  but  your 
mistake  might  have  grave  consequences,  and  that  is  why 
I  disabuse  you/ 

"  I  began  to  breathe  more  freely.  *  But  is  this  that 
you  tell  me  really  true  ?  ' 

" '  You  still  doubt  ?  So  much  the  better.  If  the  most 
spirituelle  woman  of  the  century  has  believed  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  man,  what  of  the  others  ?  I  give  myself, 
as  you  know  better  than  anybody,  for  some  hundred  years  of 


NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS  309 

age.  My  son,  in  fifty  years'  time,  will  be  able  to  double  that. 
I  have  only  verbal  traditions,  he  will  have  written  tradi- 
tions. I  shall  bequeath  him  a  great  number  of  secrets,  and 
many  family  histories.  It  is  certain  that  there  will  not  be 
wanting  many  persons  who,  having  seen  me  in  my  early 
life,  will  take  him  to  be  me,  as  you  have  taken  me  for 
my  father.  Only,  our  fortune  having  accumulated  very 
largely,  I  shall  wish  him  to  bear  a  title.  He  will  be  called 
the  Count  de  St  Germain.' 

"  '  I  am  overwhelmed  with  astonishment,'  I  said.  '  And 
what  is  the  use  of  this  ruse  ?  Why  perpetuate  such  a  re- 
semblance from  father  to  son  ?  ' 

'"You  ask  me  that?'  he  exclaimed.  'Think  what 
renown  and  prestige  it  gives.  Think  of  the  blind  confi- 
dence reposed  in  one  who  has  discovered  for  himself  the 
secret  of  not  dying.  Do  you  not  know  that  the  faith  of  a 
sick  person  in  his  physician  is  frequently  the  cause  of  his 
cure  ?  Have  regard  to  the  moral  and  mental  powers,  and 
the  physical  ones  will  most  surely  feel  the  influence.  You 
yourself  are  a  proof  of  this.' 

"'  I  ? ' 

" '  Did  you  not  remain  beautiful  till  you  were  eighty 
years  old  ? ' 

'"That  is  true.' 

"  '  Do  you  know  what  was  in  those  bottles  which  were 
to  render  your  beauty  of  such  long  duration  ?  They  con- 
tained pure  water.' 

"'Is  it  possible?' 

" '  Yes,  Mademoiselle,  pure  water,  mixed  with  a  few 
drops  of  an  innocuous  chemical  drug  to  keep  it  incorrup- 
tible, and  to  slightly  colour  it.  The  experiment  succeeded. 
My  father  had  no  serious  intention  of  making  you  think 
you  had  made  a  compact  with  the  devil.  Just  now,  in  the 
idea  that  you  recognised  me,  you  received  a  terrible  shock. 
Did  he  not  say  that  the  hour  when  you  should  see  him 
again,  you  would  not  have  three  days  to  live  ? ' 

" '  He  told  me  so  ! '  I  replied,  shuddering. 

" '  How  old  are  you  ? ' 


310  NINON  DE  L'ENCLOS 

"  *  Eighty-six  years.' 

"  '  Your  arm,  if  you  please.' 

"  I  stretched  it  out  to  him  ;  he  felt  my  pulse. 

"  '  Just  so,'  he  said;  *  not  only  will  you  not  die  in  three 
days,  but  I  guarantee  you  at  least  five  more  years,  before 
you  need  to  be  thinking  of  the  other  world.  Farewell, 
Mademoiselle.  To  complete  your  tranquillity  and  peace 
of  mind,  I  will  look  for,  and  send  you  at  once  the  leaf  of 
my  father's  tablets  on  which  you  wrote  your  signature.' 

"  He  kept  his  word.  Before  an  hour  had  passed,  I  re- 
ceived the  hateful  red  leaf,  and  my  heart  glowed  with 
satisfaction. 

"  Here,  my  friend,  in  deepest  confidence,  you  have  the 
conclusion  of  my  adventure  with  the  devil — and  of  course 
I  like  it  much  better  that  way;  but,  alas  !  I  see  things  now 
in  a  different  light  from  those  days. 

"Adieu,  my  dear  old  friend.  Reflect  a  little  yourself, 
weigh  the  pros  and  cons  of  it  all,  and  in  that  other  world 
let  us  hope  we  shall  not  be  separated.  NlNON." 


THE   END 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


50m-6,'67(H2523s8)2373 


PS2736.R29N5 


3  2106  00208  0304 


